Ars Goetia
by FoxOnPie
Summary: Byleth Eisner knew she was born a mercenary, she decided to live as a mercenary, and she assumed she would die a mercenary. The cards, however, told her that a different fate was in store for her, and meeting it would require the two skills she lacked in life: understanding people and understanding herself. *Now with a TV Tropes page!*
1. Laying Down Roots

It started, as it always did, with two distinct sights: darkness and a young girl on a throne. The throne and the surrounding room that barely cut through the darkness were cut from stone finer than anything she had seen before, and the girl—looking like she was just waking up from a nap—had pointed ears poking through green hair and wore clothes finer than anything she ever had the chance to wear in life.

"So we meet again," the girl said while stretching her arms. "We meet again… wait, what was it? Oh, right, Byleth. It is Byleth, right?"

"That's right," Byleth said.

"Yes, I knew it'd come to me. Your name, your birthday, your interests, the few that exist, anyway; I seem to always remember everything about you, which makes it odd that I can never remember anything about myself. Why do you think that is?"

"I wouldn't know," Byleth said without skipping a beat.

"Would it kill you to show just the tiniest amount of investment?" Byleth would have liked to do that, but another thing the girl couldn't seem to remember was that they had this conversation every time they met up wherever it was they were meeting up. At this point, Byleth was simply tired of the routine, but she couldn't blame the girl for thinking that she wasn't interested.

She wouldn't be the first person to call her emotions into question.

"Well, let's just drop it for now. I have something for you."

"You do? How is that even possible?"

"I don't truly understand it myself, but I can tell that it's meant for you." The girl waved her right hand in a fanciful manner, and in front of Byleth's face appeared two items floating in midair: a feathered quill and a single piece of paper that read, "Time is an incorporeal thing. Past, present, and future are all equal in strength, and one should never outweigh the other two. I hereby agree to the statement above, and I chooseth this fate of mine own free will."

"What is this?" Byleth asked. She adjusted her glasses to get a better look, but she still couldn't make much sense of it.

"I'm not certain."

"Where did you get this?"

"I'm unsure about that, as well; it simply appeared before me one day. As I said, I can tell that it's meant for you. I'd like to believe that it's harmless, so you should just sign it."

"Okay." Byleth grabbed the quill and started signing on the single line at the bottom of the page.

"Really? Just like that?"

"Why not? If you say it's fine, then it's probably fine. You don't seem like the kind of person who'd want to hurt me."

"Yes, well… thank you." The girl smiled as Byleth finished signing her full name, "Byleth Eisner." The quill and paper—contract, really—vanished in front of her eyes before the ink even had a chance to dry.

"So what happens now?"

"Now you wake up, just like you always do. However, I have the feeling that things are going to become different from here on out. Different for you, and different… for me…" The girl drifted back off to sleep in the middle of the conversation.

Byleth would have said something, but just as she had predicted, she was beginning to wake up, herself.

* * *

_**Day 19 of the Great Tree Moon, 1180**_

By the time her father had started asking if she was up, Byleth had already been awake and fully dressed for ten minutes. He greeted her with a stoic expression that one only gained from years of practice. It was the only thing Byleth was certain she inherited from her father; with his brown eyes and hair in contrast to her blue eyes and hair and his large and muscular body in contrast to her strong but lithe figure, it was an easy assumption that she got her looks from her mother, whoever that was.

"Been a while since you took so much time to get out the door," her father said as the morning sun shone down on her.

"I was lost in thought," Byleth said.

"That dream with that girl again?"

"Yes, but it was different this time."

"Different how?" Byleth didn't have an answer. Her conversations with the girl were always about random things that neither even remembered after they were done; they never had the kind of weight to them that the latest one possessed. "Well while you're trying to come up with something, we need to get to work. This isn't exactly the kind of job we can afford to take our time with."

"Understood." With her sword at her hip, Byleth walked with her father through Remire Village. The quiet little place of living was where they often stayed when their work brought them to the Adrestian Empire, and over the years, Byleth had taken care to memorize the key figures and locations within it to the best of her ability. A few buildings back was the butcher shop that made the jerky she liked to eat between battles; up ahead was the vegetable stand where she would buy supplies for her stir fry; finally, the building she was in the midst of passing was the bakery where the baker would always give her sweet bread if she asked for it.

None of those people were about. Even though it was so early in the morning, everyone was locked away in their homes as if to avoid some sort of catastrophe. It made her feel a little sad, or at least she thought that it did.

"Hope we didn't keep you waiting too long," her father said when they arrived at their destination: the small church at the edge of the town. The rest of the twenty or so mercenaries were gathered round and looked eager for a fight; Byleth wished she knew what it felt like to be so happy about something you have to do every day of your life. "They're all still inside, right?"

"Y-Yes, Jeralt. I-I kept watch all night, a-and none of them were able to get through the reinforcements we m-made." The one who spoke was the mayor of Remire Village, someone Byleth didn't have a lot of contact with over the years because of his lack of a direct connection to food; she remembered hearing that he was friends with a librarian in some other part of the continent, but that was it.

"Great. Now they're all in one place and can't do more damage than they've already done," her father said. "Sorry we couldn't just finish them all last night, but we were too exhausted. We didn't expect to get a job like this thrown onto us when we were just looking to rest before our next one, after all." The mayor nodded his head in understanding.

"S-So now you'll take care of it, r-right?"

"We were asked to do this job, so we'll do this job. It's as simple as that," Byleth said without skipping a beat. Some people in the band let out a collective groan, for some reason.

"What my daughter means is that you have nothing to worry about. We'll hit those bastards so hard they won't even know what's going on," Jeralt said.

"Oh thank the Goddess!" The villager over zealously shook her father's hand, not noticing the way his expression slightly changed when he brought up the Goddess. He did the same for Byleth, but while her father just let the handshake happen, Byleth moved away from him after just a second of skin contact.

"Personal space," she stated.

"W-What?"

"Let's just get a move on," Jeralt said with a sigh. She'd heard it enough times to know that it meant he was annoyed, but that was as far as she got with that. Byleth quickly decided that it wasn't worth thinking about and stepped over to the church, where one slash from her sword was able to cut through the door like paper. Split into two triangular halves, the door fell back into the church and allowed the morning sun to flood into the building.

It only took one second for the sun to illuminate the bony, gray-skinned monster with glowing eyes that looked at the world like it was a piece of meat.

It only took two seconds for Byleth to lunge at the monster and cut off its head with a single sword stroke.

It only took three seconds for the entirety of the church to be lit up and reveal itself to be filled with dozens of those same monsters.

"Attack!" With a mighty shout and his spear raised high, Jeralt and his band of mercenaries charged inside the church at the monsters. Byleth was quick to follow, doing whatever she could to add to the symphony of metal and magic colliding with accursed flesh and bone. Most of them were of the weak and skinny variety, so Byleth was able to cut down any that came at her with relative ease, and if she saw someone taking a few too many hits, she'd slice at their opponent's tendons to down them so her comrade could win their fight.

"Hey kid, bring some of that over here!" Jeralt said. Byleth turned towards him and saw that the monster he was fighting was far larger and bulkier than the rest, even wielding a large sword in one hand that its flesh had melted around the hilt of. There were a few like that in the church; they had to have been fighters when they were people, Byleth realized, and it would probably be harder to beat than the others. Even so, it would go down.

As the monster swung its sword down at Jeralt, Byleth threw out her left hand and launched a ball of fire directly into its face, forcing the attack to a halt and instantly stunning it. She rushed to her father's side to help finish it off, but the monster recovered faster than she anticipated and unleashed a swing from its sword that the two of them barely blocked with their weapons. The force knocked them back with a bit of stagger, but they recovered in time to dodge a second strike. Byleth launched another fireball, but the monster blocked it with its sword before sending her to the ground with a kick.

"Ow," Byleth said after a moment of silence. Jeralt, meanwhile, had pierced its side with his spear only for him to be quickly pushed back. As soon as Byleth was back on her feet, she launched another fireball at the monster. It attempted to block it like the last one, but that time, Byleth ran forward and swung her sword the second her fireball made contact, combining the force of the two attacks into one and creating a force strong enough to break the monster's weapon. A primal growl echoed from its lips as accursed metal hit the floor with a thud.

"It's too early to be this loud," Byleth said. She delivered a deep cut to its sword arm, which was followed by Jeralt hitting the wound with his spear, causing the arm to separate from its body, entirely. With his free hand, Jeralt picked up the broken part of the sword and jammed it into the monster's chest, Byleth stabbing it in the head for extra assurance. The monster stumbled for a bit before ultimately falling to the ground with all of the unlife drained from its body.

"And to think they call _me _the Blade Breaker," Jeralt said with a smile.

"Yes, that's the name you earned after hundreds of battles. Why are you bringing this up?" Byleth asked as she removed her sword from the monster's head.

"You know, because you—never mind." As Jeralt sighed, he stabbed a monster with his spear that tried to attack him from behind. "Just keep killing these things, okay?"

That was something Byleth could understand perfectly, so she did what she could to put it into action.

* * *

Before long, Byleth's sword had felled the last monster in the church. The battle was over, and with manageable injuries and zero casualties on their side, it was the ideal outcome. After that, the only thing left to do was carry the corpses out of the building one by one; she could hear her father sighing as they did that, asking how things had gotten to be so insane.

The insanity he was talking about obviously had to be the Draugr Plague. People would be perfectly fine at one moment, but then all of a sudden, they would lose their minds and transform into chaotic beasts that only existed to kill everything in their path. The Plague hit anyone regardless of age, health, or whether or not they had a Crest, and nothing in their biology provided clues for a possible cure. She couldn't remember how long it had been going on for, but Jeralt had said that there were only a handful of cases every year before she was born, with said cases having only a few victims; in present day, the number of infected matching the number they just dealt with happened at least twice a month.

Byleth would probably be upset if that happened to her father, so she could understand why everyone in the village was holed up in their homes. But still, life had to go on, and that was why she was the only one carrying out two Draugr corpses at a time.

"Th-Thank you so much for your hard work, B-Byleth," the mayor said as she pulled a couple of corpses out to the impromptu burial ground.

"There's no need to thank me. We were assigned a job and we completed it; that is all," Byleth stated.

"Y-You know, my son was among the people caught in this wave of the Draugr Plague. H-He was the best fighter in Remire, and he wanted to become a s-soldier for the Empire."

"I see."

"D-Do you think he suffered?"

"Do you mean when he became infected or when he was killed? Either way, I would have no way of knowing, and whether or not he did is largely irrelevant." Byleth picked up a shovel and started digging a hole for one of the corpses.

"O-Oh. I suppose you're right." The mayor turned away from Byleth and walked away. He made some sort of noise as he did so, but Byleth was too busy digging her holes to make a fruitless attempt at deciphering it.

"Man, could she _be _any colder? I guess that's the other reason she's called a Demon," one of the mercenaries whispered.

"Why do we let her talk to people? She brings down the mood every time she opens her mouth," another mercenary whispered.

"She's hella lucky she's the captain's daughter, that's for sure," a third mercenary whispered.

"You know, I hear that weirdo doesn't even—" Jeralt shouting at everyone to get back to work cut off the fourth mercenary and ended the conversation she would have liked hearing less of.

"Hey kid, are you all right?" Jeralt asked.

"I'm fine," Byleth said, her eyes locked on the hole she was trying to dig.

"Look, those guys were idiots; half the people we fight with are, honestly. You're fine as you are, so you shouldn't take what they say to heart."

"It did not effect on me."

"Really? Because I'm pretty sure we don't need to hack up these things before we bury them." Byleth looked down and saw that, at some point, she had stopped digging

"It makes it easier to bury them." Byleth went back to her hole, taking extra care to make sure she was actually digging it.

"Look, Byleth—"

"I said I'm fine." In response to that, Jeralt simply sighed. That time she was able to have a good idea about what was annoying him, and if she was being honest, she would like to be wrong about it.

At some point, she started hacking up the corpse again.

* * *

The rest of the day passed by in a flash. The band of mercenaries went back to resting up for their upcoming job in the Kingdom of Faerghus, so there wasn't anything as bombastic as the fight with the Draugr to occupy anyone's time. The townsfolk eventually came out of their homes and went back to their daily routines, so Byleth, despite the apparent mood she was in, visited every food merchant who was around to purchase a little of everything they had. Eating an average amount of food for her was the only thing she remembered doing before night came about and she fell asleep.

Byleth was hoping that she'd see that little girl again, possibly learn a little more about that paper she had her sign, but that wasn't the dream she had. The dream she had put her as a small child. She was outside at some sort of wooden building with architecture too foreign for her to recognize, and for some reason, she wasn't playing by herself like she always did. There was a young boy with blonde hair acting like a knight with a big stick in his hands; there was a dark-skinned boy making jokes she couldn't make out; there was a brown-haired girl with pigtails who was trying her hardest to keep a serious face, but it fell apart when Byleth poked her in the cheek.

She knew it was a dream—and not even one based in reality, since it depicted her as having friends—but there was still a strange amount of warmth radiating from every scene that played before her. For a brief moment, she wondered if that was what it meant to be definitively happy.

Then it was all stopped by footsteps coming from the building. Hard feet creaked against wooden floorboards as everyone stopped what they were doing and lined up in front of the entranceway. The brown-haired girl took Byleth's hand into her own, and Byleth didn't seem to mind it being there. Finally, the person they all seemed to know came into view and revealed himself to be a tall man wrapped in robes wearing a metal mask, the mask having a beard that was constructed to look like tentacles.

"The final day has arrived. Time to play the game." That was all he said before the dream faded out of sight.

* * *

To Byleth's surprise, she didn't wake up after that; all that happened was that her dream had changed. She was once again in her adult body, but she still wasn't at the throne room of the little girl. Now she was sitting inside of a tent—a blue-colored tent, for some reason—and judging by the sound of cannon fire and clashing weapons, there seemed to be a battle going on outside.

Not a strange sound to be hearing, at least compared to the piano and operatic singing that seemed to come from nowhere.

As Byleth looked around the tent, she noticed that there were two other people there with her by the exit. On the right side was a tall man with white hair and yellow eyes wearing a suit of armor, said suit of armor having a crown-shaped helmet, shoulder pads with three points jutting out of each of them, and a blue coloring that matched the tent's. The person to the man's left was sitting at a large desk blocking the exit, and he was a short, balding man dressed in a fancy suit with bloodshot eyes and a nose almost as long as her sword.

"Welcome to the Velvet Room," the man with the long nose said. "My name is Igor, and I am delighted to make your acquaintance. This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter. It is a room that only those who are bound by a 'contract' may enter. It may be that such a fate awaits you in the near future."

"Contract." He must be talking about the paper that girl had her sign, though she still believed that the girl didn't know what it was about.

"Now then, would you be so kind as to introduce yourself?"

"My name is Byleth Eisner," she said, though she had a feeling he already knew that.

"Yes, it would seem that there is a peculiar destiny in store for you. This room's appearance matches the state of mind of its guest, so for it to take on the guise of a battlefield shows that you have lived far differently than most. Ah, before I forget, allow me to introduce my assistant to you." Igor gestured to the blue knight. "This is Adam. He is a resident of this place, like myself."

"My name is Adam. I am here to accompany you on your journey. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance," Adam said with a small bow.

"What do you mean by that?" Byleth asked.

"Very soon, you will embark on a quest the likes of which you have never experienced before," Igor said. "Adam and I will do all that we can to assist you, for if you were to fail, it could very well mean the end of the world you're so fortunate to live in."

"Understood," Byleth said without missing a beat. Adam blinked a few times as the word sat in the air.

"Just like that? No rebuttal of any kind?" Adam asked.

"I don't think there's a reason for him to lie, so there's no reason to overreact," Byleth said. For some reason, Igor then proceeded to laugh.

"You truly are an interesting guest. Perhaps there really is merit in staying involved with this side," Igor said.

"This side of what?" Igor just shook his head, and that appeared to be the end of that.

"We will discuss this further at a later date. Until then, farewell, and remember to abide by the contract."

That time, the dream fading away actually did result in her waking up.


	2. Immigrant Song

_**Day 20 of the Great Tree Moon, 1180**_

"Hey kid, time to wake up," were the first words Byleth heard upon leaving that strange dream amongst strange dreams. Unlike the day before, she made sure to be quick about getting dressed, save for the glasses that were resting against her forehead, but that didn't mean her thoughts weren't in a similar state of disarray. "You dream about that girl again?"

"No, she wasn't even in this one," Byleth said. "But there was a blue tent and singing and a big nose…" Byleth strained herself to try and remember whatever she could of the dream.

"A big nose? Did you eat a bunch of weird food again? You always do that when you're in a mood."

"I don't do that."

"The last time your sword broke, you ate raw chicken and waffles covered in soy sauce; last year, when I took back the mead you tried to hide from me, you started eating bacon-wrapped celery and oysters with a side of goat milk; six years ago, I spend one day in the Alliance by myself and come back to find you covered in pasta sauce, chocolate ice cream, and fried peaches. Don't even get me started on the Grilled Byleth—"

"It wasn't one day, and all of those were good ideas, conceptually."

"For whom?" Jeralt asked with a sigh. Byleth didn't want to talk about that anymore, so she tried to remember the first dream she had, the one that she really cared about.

"Dad, I never had any friends, right?" Jeralt gave her an odd look that she couldn't figure out how to interpret.

"Not that I'm aware of. Why?"

"There was another part of my dream. I was a child at this building, and I was—"

"Jeralt! Sir! We have an emergency! Three kids are being attacked by bandits and are requesting help!" One of the mercenaries suddenly barged in and interrupted Byleth.

"We'll talk about this later, kid." Byleth nodded her head, pulled her glasses down, and that was the end of the conversation. She quickly followed Jeralt and the other mercenary outside into the village. There, she was greeted with the sight of their company and the three children in question who, as it turned out, were far older than that; at first glance, none of them appeared to be any more than a few years younger than her. They were all dressed in black uniforms with either gold or silver accents and capes colored red, blue, and yellow. The one who wore the yellow cape was a dark-skinned man with a bow and quiver strung over his back and the top part of his shirt open; the one who wore the blue cape was a man with blonde hair who held a spear in his right hand and had pieces of armor spread around his uniform; the one with the red cape was a white-haired woman wearing red stockings who held an axe in her left hand.

Byleth breathed a sigh of relief. The men looking like the boys from her dream was odd, but the girl had brown hair, not the woman's white hair, so it had to just be a coincidence. It had to be, yet the woman still seemed to project something odd at Byleth alongside the other two, an odd energy she couldn't quite get a read on.

"Apologies for bothering you so late, but we're in the middle of an emergency," the blonde-haired man said.

"It's fine, we were already up, anyway," Jeralt said. "So, you three say you were attacked by bandits?"

"That is correct. We were out camping in the woods to train for the beginning of the school year at Garreg Mach when we were suddenly ambushed," the white-haired woman said.

"You're from Garreg Mach? I knew I recognized that uniform," Jeralt said with a sigh.

"No doubt those guys are after our lives and our gold, but it's all yours if you help us fight them off. The gold, I mean. Don't know about these two, but my life's fine where it is," the dark-skinned man said.

"Keep it. I don't want your money."

"Did those Draugr give you a concussion, Dad?" Byleth asked. The dark-skinned man laughed at that, but Byleth didn't understand what was funny about worrying about her father's mental health.

"Look, I just don't want to deal with Garreg Mach, you know that, right?" Byleth nodded her head. "Good, so let's just help send these kids back on their way as soon as we can." Jeralt stepped away from Byleth and jumped atop his grey-colored horse, Gamigin. "Kid, take the girl with you in case there are any archers or mages. The other two have more range, so they're with me. Let's move out!"

The blonde-haired man met Jeralt with a, "Yes, sir!" while the dark-skinned man gave a more casual agreement, and the company and guests headed out of Remire to confront the bandits, Byleth and the white-haired woman following up from the rear.

"Does your father have some kind of problem with Garreg Mach?" the white-haired woman asked.

"I don't think he hates the school," Byleth said. "My dad doesn't really like the Church, so the fact that the Central Church is there probably makes him not like it by association."

"I see. And how do you feel about it? The Church, I mean."

"I don't know. No one's allowed to talk about the Church around me or my dad, so I don't know anything about it other than that he doesn't like it. Honestly, I have no strong feelings one way or the other." The woman made a face that quickly vanished, but even still, Byleth didn't understand it. That was why she hated meeting new people; it was hard enough to understand the ones she already knew, so trying to figure out strangers was just stress she didn't particularly enjoy.

"Well, we can talk more about that later, Miss—"

"Byleth."

"Byleth, yes. My name is Edelgard, please show me what you can do." Byleth nodded her head and she and Edelgard kept walking with the mercenary band. As they walked, Byleth heard Edelgard's words being repeated in her head, only they were said by a younger-sounding girl and with a greater deal of familiarity.

Byleth did what she could to put it out of her mind.

* * *

Byleth and the rest of her father's mercenaries quickly reached the forest on the outskirts of Remire Village. The torches lit for keeping watch for nighttime Draugr attacks provided enough light to make the bandits visible. There were only a little over a dozen bandits to contend with; they had the advantage in numbers, but that didn't mean they could let their guard down.

"These guys are coming up from the right, so the leader's probably over there, too," Jeralt said. "Kid, you lead half the company that way, I'll lead the other half to the left and try to meet up with you."

"Understood," Byleth said. She took Edelgard and half of the company through the right side of the forest while Jeralt took the other half and the two unidentified men through the left side, and both halves quickly found themselves embroiled in combat. Edelgard jumped ahead of Byleth and swung her axe down on an approaching bandit, downing him in one one-handed swing. While taking down her own opponent, Byleth was able to see the blonde-haired man easily breaking through a bandit's armor with his spear and the dark-skinned man effortlessly sniping at another with his bow.

_Nice to know that they won't let this just be an escort mission_, Byleth thought as she launched a fireball at a bandit's face.

"Dammit! Where the hell did these guys come from?!" The shout came from a tall bearded man Byleth assumed to be the bandit leader.

"We came from over there," Byleth said, pointing back towards Remire.

"I think that was rhetorical," Edelgard said while knocking another bandit away with a kick. While the other bandits dealt with the larger company, the leader charged at Byleth and Edelgard with a wide swing of his axe. Edelgard parried it with her own axe, and when he stumbled back from the impact, Byleth charged forward and kicked him in the face, followed by a fireball into his chest as he hit the dirt.

"Dad's coming." Byleth directed Edelgard's attention to Jeralt and his half of the company coming up from the left side.

"I saw you take down their leader as we were coming over. Truly admirable work," the blonde-haired man said.

"Looks like we picked the right village to run and hide in. The gods above must be smiling down on us, or something," the dark-skinned man said.

"You kids can talk when there's no one left who can fight," Jeralt said as he charged at one of the bandits. He was right, Byleth thought. There were still enemies running around, meaning they still had to fight and couldn't afford to do anything else.

"Die!" As that thought went through her head, she saw the bandit leader suddenly jump back onto his feet. Byleth's hits were too shallow, it seemed, and he took advantage of that to play possum and attack the first person who provided an opening for him; in this case, it was Edelgard after setting her axe down for a moment to catch her breath.

It was a good plan, but unfortunately for him, Byleth hadn't taken her eyes off of her all night, so she was more than prepared for the attack. She got between Edelgard and the bandit leader and countered his axe with her sword, hitting it with enough strength to send it flying out of his hands along with two of his fingers. The blonde-haired man attacked him with his spear and the dark-skinned man fired an arrow at him, but he narrowly avoided both as he ran off to retrieve his weapon in the dark of the night, his bloodied fingers in tow.

"Slippery little rat," Edelgard said before turning to Byleth. "Thank you for saving me, Byleth. I asked you to show me what you're capable of, and you've more than done just that."

"I'll say! I knew mercenaries could be brutal, but I never thought it'd be like that," the dark-skinned man said.

"I'm always as brutal as I need to be," Byleth stated.

All of a sudden, there was a tingling sensation running through her body.

"He's getting away! Together now!" The blonde-haired man pointed his spear in the direction of the bandit leader. Byleth could still feel the tingling sensation, but she elected to ignore it as the four of them charged after their target. However, before they could barely cross half the distance towards him, they stopped when a bright light came down from the sky that enveloped the four of them. The faces of Edelgard and the other two, faces that could do a far better job of conveying shock, showed that they were just as confused as her, and for good reason. No other parts of the forest were being illuminated, and it was too early for sunrise, so it couldn't have been the morning sun.

It especially couldn't have been the morning sun because normal sunlight didn't contain traces of blue, green and purple.

"Weird," Byleth said.

"How is that all you can—what is _that_?!" That was all the blonde-haired man had time to say before it happened.

Before the giant rainbow shot down from the sky and swallowed them whole.

* * *

After a few seconds, Byleth regained her sight and was able to take note of several things: first, and most importantly, she and the three people she was tasked with protecting weren't dead; second, they were all inside the giant rainbow that swallowed them earlier and were now floating and flying through the air, somehow; third, Edelgard seemed to be closer to her than she remembered, like the girl had tried to grab her before they were swallowed; fourth, they were no longer in the forest, but what appeared to be a strange, endless void colored an ethereal blue, one far different from the blue that the tent she saw in her dreams was dyed.

"What the hell is that?!" The fifth thing Byleth noticed was most likely what the dark-skinned man was also noticing: a giant tree vaguely in the shape of a dragon, roots vaguely resembling feet and a tail, branches stretching out to resemble claws and three wings, two on the sides and one running down the center, and the top of the tree resembling a toothy maw. The roots, branches, and tip of the tree were all also wrapped around giant yellow spheres covered in leaves and some sort of black mist, and each of the spheres projected different images for the world to see; the rainbow they were trapped inside of seemed to feeding into the sphere entangled in the bottom left foot, one that projected an image of a lush forest bathed in light.

Almost as soon as Byleth took note of that, the four of them seemed to rapidly accelerate towards the forest sphere; Byleth didn't know how fast they were going, but since Edelgard and the other two were now screaming, it was safe to say that they were going rather fast.

* * *

When Byleth was a child, she tried riding a pegasus for the first time, and after being airborne for five seconds, the pegasus bucked her off and she hit the ground hard enough to leave her arm broken for three weeks—it would have been four, if not for her mysterious healing power. It was safe to say that her most recent fall from the giant rainbow was far larger and harder than that, yet when she hit the ground, there was barely enough impact to leave a bruise; when she and the others stood up from the grassy field they landed in, she saw that their landing didn't leave a single sign of impact in the ground. It was all rather odd.

"Is everyone okay?" Byleth asked.

"I'm fine, yes," Edelgard said.

"Much more okay than I thought I'd be," the blonde-haired man said.

"Speak for yourself, because I'm in _terrible_ pain!" the dark-skinned man said.

"What?! You are?! Where?!"

"It's my ass! I-I think there's a crack in it!" The sound immediately following that was Edelgard and the blonde-haired man putting their respective hands to their respective faces.

"Seriously, Claude? You're doing this now?" Edelgard asked. "Now's not the time for—"

"Take off your pants," Byleth interjected.

"""What?!""" Edelgard, the blonde-haired man, and the dark-skinned man Byleth now knew as Claude asked.

"I know Faith magic, so I need to inspect your injury." Byleth held up a hand and ignited a small flame in her palm. "Depending on the severity of it, I might have to cauterize the wound."

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa! I was kidding! It was just a joke, so please don't set my ass on fire!" Claude shouted.

"A joke? Right, I know about those." Byleth made the fire in her hand vanish.

"Man, you're the first woman since my mother to give me a heart attack."

"If you're having a heart attack, then I'll need to—"

"Not being literal, please don't do anything!" Byleth didn't understand what she was doing wrong, but she complied, regardless. "Moving on, where the hell are we?"

"I'm not sure," the blonde-haired man said. "Whatever sort of magic that rainbow was carried us somewhere completely new in an instant. At least it felt like an instant, but considering that it's not dark anymore—"

"No, you were right, Dimitri," Edelgard cut in. "Just because it's light out doesn't mean that it's daytime. I'm looking up at the sky, but I don't see anything that resembles a sun." Byleth, Claude, and the man she now knew as Dimitri looked up at the sky. Just as Edelgard had said, there was no sun in the sky, yet it was still as blue as any normal sky and the surrounding area was still lit up like any outdoor area would be in the middle of the day.

"Weird," was all Byleth had to say about it.

"Weird hardly even covers it. Add in that strange rainbow, the giant tree, and the sphere of light we were sucked into, and it's clear that we're not in Fodlan anymore. Not anywhere I've ever been, at least."

"If we're not in Fodlan, then where are we? Who sent us here, and why?" Dimitri asked.

"We can worry about that later. For now, we need to go," Byleth said. Before anyone could ask for clarification, Byleth pointed at the river in front of them, sparkling as if they were looking at flowing light rather than water.

"Right, if there's a river, then we might find people living downstream who can give us some answers. Good eye, Byleth. Guess you're getting the most out of those specs," Claude said.

"My prescription is up to date," Byleth said. Byleth started walking closer to the river, but after only taking a couple of steps, Edelgard called out to her and asked her to stop. "We need to start moving."

"Yes, but since we're spending far more time together than any of us thought, we should do a better job of introducing ourselves," Edelgard said. Byleth shrugged her shoulders at that. "I'll start. My name is Edelgard von Hresvelg."

"My name is Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd," Dimitri said.

"And I'm Claude von Riegan," Claude said.

"Is that right? So that would make you three, respectively, the princess of the Adrestian Empire, the prince of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, and the heir to House Riegan of the Leicester Alliance," Byleth said. That was surely the reason those names sounded familiar to her, even with the little she knew about Fodlan society. That was surely it. "I could have sworn that Duke Riegan had no living family, though."

"Yeah, we were all pretty surprised by it," Claude said.

"In any case, now that you know who we are, allow me to offer you the chance to lend your services to the Empire once we make it back to Fodlan. You've more than proven yourself a capable warrior—"

"Which is why her talents would be far better suited for the Kingdom. We don't have anyone quite like you, so you'd be a true boon to us all," Dimitri interjected. Edelgard threw a glare at Dimitri that he returned in kind, though Byleth didn't understand why.

"Jeez, at least buy the poor girl dinner first," Claude said. Claude was currently winning.

"So we're to believe you have no plans of stealing her over to the Alliance?" Edelgard asked.

"Of course I do, but my way of doing it is far more elegant. I'm gonna spend this little adventure of ours building up a priceless friendship with her, then after we become best friends over saving each other from a giant monster—I just assume there's gonna be a giant monster somewhere—_that's _when I get her to go home with me." Claude stepped over to Byleth and put an arm around her shoulder. "How's that sound, Byleth? Pretty good, right?"

"Personal space," Byleth stated. Claude quickly removed his arm from her. "Let's go." The three of them followed after Byleth. As they walked, she thought more about the idea of her going to one of their homelands, and if she was being honest, she couldn't pick one, even hypothetically.

All three places were more or less equal in terms of food, so it was hard to decide.

* * *

Byleth, Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude followed the sparkling river for over an hour, and while not a single trace of civilization was discovered, more and more details about the place they had ended up at became known. The air smelled nice no matter where they went, like milk and honey and hand lotion. The flora bore little to no resemblance to anything in Fodlan, not even surrounding nations like Brigid or Morfis. The trees and flowers were either far larger or far smaller than anything Byleth had seen before. The flowers bloomed outwards to make themselves look like small suns; the bark on the trees had a spiral coloring that alternated between brown and white gold, and the leaves were a bright yellow that matched the light illuminating the area.

However, what was most peculiar about the flora was that none of the specimens they came across were completely organic. If Byleth looked at them closely enough, she could see that they had pieces of metal woven into their construction, metal far smoother and far better built than anything she had ever come across; after that realization hit her, she began to notice that even the grass beneath her feet had a metallic quality to it. As far as she knew, metal couldn't sprout up from the ground like a plant, so the flora had to be man-made. Why someone would go to all that trouble, she had no idea.

"Someone's here," Byleth suddenly said, throwing an arm in front of the other three to get them to stop. She pointed her sword towards the top of a large tree. Standing on top of one of the branches was a small figure, definitely a person, but their form was obscured by the shadow cast by leaves.

"Put that thing away. It's rude to point a sword at people, you know," a familiar voice said. Byleth recognized it in an instant, and when she stepped out of the shadows and started floating down to the ground, it became clear that it was the little girl she always saw in her dreams.

"Everyone grab your weapons! We don't know what she's capable of, so be ready for anything!" Edelgard said, jumping in front of Byleth with her axe at the ready.

"You're certainly quick to the draw," Claude said.

"It's fine. She's completely harmless, utterly incapable of hurting anyone," Byleth said.

"I wouldn't go _that _far," the girl said, her bare feet now floating a little above the ground. After a few seconds, Edelgard sighed and put down her axe.

"If you can trust her, then I won't do anything for now," Edelgard said.

"Anyway, we're just relieved to finally meet someone here," Dimitri said. "Byleth, how do you know this girl?"

"She's a tiny, nameless amnesiac who lives in my head and visits me in my dreams," Byleth said.

"I'm sorry, what? Then again, after everything that's happened today…"

"It's definitely true, though she's certainly not much for conversation," the girl said. "Our connection allowed me to see that Byleth was heading down this path, and it also allowed me to learn the names of her good-looking companions. Edelgard, Dimitri, Claude, thank you for providing me with the extra company."

"Wait, were you the one who brought us here?" Claude asked.

"No, that wasn't me. I'm pretty sure it wasn't, at least."

"You're _pretty _sure? What does that—where even are we? Do you know that?" Edelgard asked.

"Of course! I think. Wait, wait, something's coming to me. What is it, what is it?" The girl snapped her fingers before pointing up towards the sky, dramatically. "Oh yes, that's it! This place isn't Fodlan or Morfis or Almyra or anywhere else that exists in your world. This world is none other than Yggdrasil, the World Tree, and we're inside my home, the realm known as Alfheim!"

"Huh. How about that?" Byleth said.

"Please have a bigger reaction to something like this!" Dimitri said. "Little girl, is what you're saying true? Is your home really some other world separate from ours?"

"That's right! I think," the girl said. "I mean, I'm certain about Yggdrasil existing on a separate plane of reality, but I'm honestly not entirely sure if Alheim is my home. I do know that I feel a sense of familiarity while being here, though I honestly can't remember when I first arrived. I also have a bit of resemblance to some of the more ornery inhabitants, but I don't know if that's enough for this to be my home. I think. Full disclosure, this probably wasn't the best time for a visit."

"What are you talking about? And what do you mean by other inhabitants?" Claude asked.

"And what do you mean by ornery?" Edelgard asked.

"Hide," Byleth stated before stepping behind a tree.

"Oh, I can answer both of those questions. Everyone do like Byleth and hide!" The rest of the group wasted no time following Byleth's lead—Edelgard and the little girl hiding behind the same tree as Byleth and Dimitri and Claude going behind a bush. At that point, Byleth was sure that everyone had seen what she had seen: a mysterious black sphere of energy appearing in the air out of nowhere. It quickly expanded and became flat, and from there, a man dressed in all black robes stepped through it as if it were a doorway of some sort.

"Okay, hurry it up. We don't have all day, you know!" More footsteps sounded off from inside the dark doorway, though they sounded far lighter than the man's footsteps. Soon enough, ten figures exited the doorway to join the man in black. They were all tall, lanky figures with pitch-black bodies draped in white robes, insectoid wings sticking out of their backs, and pointy ears sticking out of their heads. Byleth assumed that the ears were why the little girl thought they were related, but beyond that, there were very little similarities between the little girl and those creatures.

For starters, the little girl had an actual human face as opposed to the blank mask void of emotion that the creatures all wore.

"Okay, let's make this a good one today. Nothing too fancy, just need to get people's attention."

"Yeah, yeah, we know the drill," one of the creatures said, its voice simultaneously rough and soft. It took a few steps in front of the man in black before putting its hands out in the air. As it moved its hands apart, the air ripped apart and created a hole in space roughly the size of its head. The creature then flattened itself out, lifted itself into the air, and flew into the hole and vanished from sight. Byleth couldn't see it clearly before the hole vanished, but she was sure that the hole was showing a restaurant in western Faerghus.

"Yeah, this one's gonna cause a nice little stir." Another creature stepped forward and began the same process as the previous one.

"Who's that guy supposed to be?" Claude asked.

"I don't know, and I don't think the stir he's trying to cause is anything good," Dimitri said.

"Really says a lot about your so-called friends," Edelgard said to the little girl.

"I never said they were my friends! Don't lump me in with people who do the kind of stuff they do!" the little girl said.

"What are they doing?" Byleth asked.

"They're-They're… Darn it, I just had it! It was a really bad thing, too, and it just slipped my mind!" The little girl pounded her fist against the tree in frustration.

_Wait, hold on_, Byleth thought too late for it to be any good. The obvious outcome of hitting a metal object occurred: the sound of the little girl's fist echoed out through the area, and the man in black and the creatures stopped what they were doing and turned in their direction.

"Didn't think a place like this could have rats," the man in black said. A blast of dark magic shot out of his hand at the tree the little girl struck; Byleth pulled her and Edelgard away moments before their hiding spot was destroyed, thus fully exposing them to their enigmatic enemy.

"Any chance we can hash this out over a meal?" Claude asked as he and Dimitri stepped out from their bush.

"Kill them!"

"Yeah, I was afraid of that." Claude drew his bow; Dimitri readied his spear; Edelgard readied her axe; Byleth drew her sword; the little girl got into a fighting stance from the safety of Byleth's shadow. Two of the creatures stepped forward with postures full of rage. Byleth had no idea what those things were or what they were capable of, but she assumed she would be ready for anything they could throw at her.

She was wrong. She was not ready for them to explode into puddles of dark goo and then for each of them to reform into a pumpkin with a face carved into it atop a cloak and a floating hand holding a lantern. That was hardly something anyone could be ready for.

"Hee-Ho!" the pumpkins shouted. They held their lanterns up high as fireballs flew out of them. Byleth shouted for everyone to move; the group managed to avoid the attack, but the resulting burn marks created from them suggested that their magic was at a higher level than Byleth's. A less than ideal conclusion to arrive at.

"That was too close! Little girl, what did those things just do?" Dimitri asked.

"I think—No, I'm absolutely certain this time. The form they were in before was a mask, and this is their true form!" the little girl said.

"Might not be giant, but I knew there'd be monsters," Claude said.

"They're cuter than before," Byleth said.

"Even if they are, they need to go down all the same," Edelgard said. Three more of the creatures stepped forward. "Come on everyone, we can't falter and die in some place no one knows exists. The only option available to us is—" The three creatures exploded into puddles of dark goo and reformed into a trio of giant rats made of metal with cannon-like objects on their backs. "Th-The only option available to us is… is…"

"Edelgard?" Byleth saw all of Edelgard's composure abandon her. Her face started sweating, her legs started shaking, her eyes started blinking in rapid succession, a complete turnaround from how she had been acting before. One of the giant rats let out some sort of roar, and then Edelgard dropped her axe with a scream and jumped behind the remains of the tree. "Edelgard!"

"What's gotten into you?!" Dimitri asked. Edelgard didn't respond with anything other than incomprehensible mutterings. The little girl went over to her side to console her, but Edelgard was still being uncooperative.

"Talk later, fight monsters _now_!" Claude said. Byleth didn't have a problem with that, so she charged at the creatures. One of the untransformed ones exploded and reformed into a small skeleton wearing a black coat and wielding a knife. The skeleton met Byleth's sword with its knife, and with a "Hee-Ho!" effortlessly blocked her attack, knocked her sword out of her hands, and blew her back with a blast of dark magic from its mouth.

That was probably bad.

"Damn you!" Dimitri said. He stabbed his spear at one of the pumpkins, but his weapon shattered on impact and the pumpkin started hitting him in the face with its lantern. The second Dimitri managed to dodge a swing, his body glowed a pale light as he punched the pumpkin in its face. The pumpkin received a bit of a dent, but it didn't look seriously hurt as it shot Dimitri down with a fireball. In the midst of that, Claude shot arrows at them, but they all bounced harmlessly off of their bodies. Before Claude could so much as gasp, one of the metal rats ran over and tackled him to the ground.

"Ha! You morons! As if ordinary weapons like those could do a thing against these beasts!" the man in black laughed. The last three creatures exploded into puddles of dark goo that melded together into a single large one that quickly reformed into a large rooster; the rooster crowed so loudly that Byleth, who barely dodged a swipe from the skeleton as she picked herself up off the ground, thought her eardrums were going to burst.

_This is not good_, Byleth thought as she grabbed her sword. She launched a fireball at the rooster that hit it square in the face and sent it back a bit. She fired another one at it, but the dented pumpkin Dimitri fought intercepted the blast with its lantern, absorbing it and somehow restoring its head to its natural state. The rooster crowed once more and fired a blast of wind with its wings that blew Byleth, Dimitri, and Claude backward. _This is really not good._

"Oh no oh no oh no—Hey Edelgard, pull yourself together, already!" the little girl said.

"This isn't how this was supposed to go. Those kinds of things weren't supposed to be here. Why do I have to see those monsters? Why do I have to see them when I'm with these people? Especially… Especially…" Edelgard mumbled something like that over and over again as one of the giant metal rats approached her and the little girl and the other creatures approached the rest of the group.

"Somebody do _something_! I don't want to die before I even know who I am!" Byleth wanted to answer her request, but she couldn't figure out what to do. They were all stuck in some strange world filled with monsters that shrugged off her attacks like they were nothing and hit too hard for comfort. In all likelihood, they were all going to die.

Byleth thought that that was something she could accept. For herself, the life she lived was one where death was always around the table, so she thought it'd be better to just accept it when it finally came for her. For the others, it was unfortunate, but there was simply nothing that could be done to save them, so there wasn't any merit in drawing out the inevitable. They were all going to die, and that was the end of it, plain and simple.

That's how it should have been, yet when one of the giant metal rats moved too close to Edelgard for comfort, Byleth still found herself jumping in front of her and the little girl and slashing at it with her sword. Her weapon didn't break on impact like Dimitri's did, but she was still being pushed back, regardless.

"Didn't I tell you it was pointless? Stop this useless struggle and just die already!" the man in black shouted. Byleth knew he was right. She knew it was pointless, she knew it'd be easier if they just accepted that they were going to die, but she couldn't. The little girl was the closest thing she had to a friend, so if she really thought about it, she didn't want to see her get hurt. Then there was Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude. She had known the trio for a couple of hours, she barely knew anything about them, but the more she thought about any of them dying, the more her chest started to hurt, almost as if there was something inside there. She didn't know what that was, she didn't understand what that was, but she didn't hate, so she couldn't help but want to follow it through.

At that moment, her sword broke through the metal rat's defenses and pushed it back, a deep cut making its way into its armor.

"What?!" The sight was enough to make the other monsters stop in their tracks. "How?! You don't have the strength to harm anyone here, so how?!"

_I don't know. I don't get it, either_, Byleth thought, suddenly feeling out of breath and energized at the same time. _I don't know why I'm here, and I don't know why I'm trying so hard, but I don't think I can stop myself. _On instincts she didn't recognize, Byleth started rapidly running her left index finger through the air, a tracing of pale green light appearing in tandem. She kept at it in a wild pattern, and when she stopped, an intricate symbol resembling a flame appeared in the air in front of her.

"Byleth?" Edelgard asked, seemingly regaining some of her composure.

"What are you doing?" the little girl asked. She didn't know what she was doing. She didn't know what needed to be done.

All she knew was that there was one word that kept echoing in her head.

* * *

Besides that one word, all of a sudden, there was a strangely familiar scene playing out in Byleth's head. She was a child-like she was in her dream, and the other kids were there as well. The four of them were sitting on a wooden floor, most likely inside that strange building, and there were small ceramic cups filled with something that smelled like the kind of drinks her father had too much of.

"Drink." Standing in front of them was the man in the mask from the first dream. When no one did anything, he motioned with a heavily scarred hand for them to pick up their cups. The four of them picked them up and took a collective sip. It burned and tasted terrible; definitely the kind of drink her father liked.

"Endure it. With this drink, you children shall have your hearts forever bonded." The brown-haired girl started coughing, so Byleth—sitting on her immediate right—patted her on the back. "Finish it all, and then we will begin the game that will set all of our fates in motion. That game is called—"

* * *

"Persona!" The foreign word left Byleth's lips as she slammed her hand against the symbol of flames in the air. The metal rat she injured charged at her once more, but before it could attack her, a sword stabbed it through the head and made it vanish into ash.

The sword didn't belong to Byleth, though. Emerging from a pillar of green fire behind Byleth stood the owner of the silver sword, said owner being a tall, pale-skinned woman who wore a leather skirt, a thick fur belt, and chains around her forearms. Her chest was bare, but there were no signs of nipples or a belly button; the only things that could be seen were a small scar in the center of her chest and a red tattoo than ran up her left side and around her back until it reemerged on her head atop the horned, metal mask she wore. The mask gave no indication of emotion or personality; the only thing it gave away was an opening in the back that allowed a long mane of blue hair to flow out.

"I am thou, thou art I. I am one who inherited the warrior spirit of the Red explorer, Freydis!" the woman spoke, her voice a distorted mirror of Byleth's own. "My child, if thou desires it, then I will lend thee mine power and take you to the farthest reaches of the world, no matter how many must be slain on the way!"

"All right, then," Byleth said. Her companions all looked dumbfounded by what was transpiring, and she didn't understand it either, but now wasn't the time for confusion. Now was the time to do the one thing she did best: fight.

Without a word, Freydis dashed forward and stabbed at another metal rat, her sword running straight through its hide and tearing it in two. At the same time, Byleth charged at the pumpkins with her sword held high. They launched balls of fire at her, but with speed she didn't realize she possessed, she dodged their attacks and got in close enough to cut them down and turn them to ash. The skeleton ran up and cut her leg with its knife, but Byleth quickly kicked it down and disintegrated it with a fireball.

The last of the metal rats started firing the cannon-like object at Freydis. The ammunition was small and flew out at incredible speed, each one piercing Freydis' flesh without fail; for some reason, Byleth found her own body getting injured in the same spots as Freydis. She didn't want to keep dealing with that, she wanted it to stop, and as if responding to her will, Freydis fired a beam of light from her sword at the metal rat that blew it into the air where it vanished in a burst of light. As it vanished, her mysterious healing power activated and erased the worst of her injuries.

The only creature left was the rooster, and as soon as the thought crossed her mind, it crowed and released a blast of wind at her and Freydis. Byleth used a newfound well of strength to stand her ground, but she could hardly move against the wind. Freydis could hardly move, either, and when attempting to use her light magic, it faded out before it could reach its target. Byleth couldn't let this keep going. She needed something to hit it from afar, something that could pierce through its wind.

Out of nowhere, an object appeared in her left hand. It looked like the cannon-like object the metal rats had, but far smaller and built in a way that naturally fit in her hand. There was a small metal bit that her finger naturally went to that felt like it could be pressed down on. The weapon's sudden appearance was odd, but Byleth just shrugged her shoulders, pressed down on the metal bit, and launched a tiny cannonball at the rooster that flew through the wind and pierced through its neck. The wind ceased as it paced around in pain, and Freydis took that opportunity to jump over and decapitate the rooster, its head and body turning to ash in tandem.

"They're all dead! Inconceivable!" the man in black shouted. "How?! How can you have that power?! Only the elite of the elites are able to harness it, so how can you—"

Byleth silenced him by stabbing her sword through his foot.

"I'd like some answers," Byleth said. Up above her head, watching everything play out was Freydis, her new power. Her latest mystery.

Her Persona.

* * *

**I had no idea how to properly describe it, but Byleth's gun is a Thompson Contender.**


	3. Glaciers of Ideas, Importing

"You have answers, please make them appropriate for our questions," Byleth said as she dug her sword into the man in black's foot.

"Agh! Dammit, how about you ask something?!" the man in black asked. It took a second for Byleth to realize that she forgot that part.

"Okay, give me a second. We already know where we are, but we do need an answer for how we got here, since that was confusing. Do you know about that?"

"What? Didn't you just use the Bifrost to get here? How else do you go to the World Tree?"

"The Bifrost? Is that what that rainbow is called? Everyone, the rainbow that brought us here is called the Bifrost."

"We heard. We're standing right here," the little girl said. Without Byleth realizing it, her, Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude had moved away from their original locations and were standing behind her.

"It's good to have a name for it, but what's more important is learning how it works," Edelgard said.

"And while we're at it, maybe get an answer about what _that _thing is?" Claude asked, pointing at Freydis as she floated above Byleth.

"It's Freydis," Byleth said.

"Yes, but what _is _she?" Dimitri asked.

"My Persona."

"Okay, but what _is_ that?" Byleth stared at Dimitri in silence for a few seconds before shrugging her shoulders.

"Should I ask him that?"

"Probably!" the little girl said.

"Okay, then. Can you tell us what a Persona—" At that moment, the man in black ripped his foot away from Byleth's sword, a small pool of blood forming around his foot. "Oh."

"You little ingrates! I'll teach you not to mess with me! All of you, get out here and help me kill them!" The same black doorway from a moment ago reappeared in the air, along with several copies of equal darkness. Byleth could already see the masks that those creatures were wearing peeking out of them, and there were far more than in the group from before. While Byleth ended up disposing of the last ones with relative ease, she had no way of knowing if it would be as easy the second time around; increased numbers aside, the masked creatures could easily transform into things far more powerful than the ones she killed, and she still didn't know the full capabilities of the new powers and abilities at her disposal. There was only one thing that could be done if everyone's safety were to be assured.

"Let's run away."

"You don't have to tell me twice!" The little girl shouted as she flew off in the direction they came from. Freydis fired another beam of light towards the black doorways and made a small explosion in front of them, the last action she took before disappearing in a burst of green fire.

"Let's go." The statement that time was directed at Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude; judging by how quickly they joined Byleth in running away, they seemed to have gotten the message rather easily. The man in black cursed at them as they ran, but Byleth didn't pay much attention to it beyond that.

There was just a lot going on.

* * *

After running away for about ten minutes, Byleth could no longer hear the sounds of the creatures, so she took that as a sign to stop and take a breath, her companions seemingly doing the same.

"It sounds like those monsters won't be catching up anytime soon. Good. The less time around those hideous things, the better," Edelgard said.

"Shadows. They're called Shadows, so you should call them as such," the little girl said, her face quickly contorting into one of confusion.

"Those things have a name? Why didn't you say that—this is another thing you didn't remember until now, isn't it?" Claude asked.

"Weird habit," Byleth said.

"I think it's beyond that, Byleth," Dimitri said. "Little girl, Byleth just said you were an amnesiac, but it's clearly not as straightforward as that. Has this happened before?"

"No, it hasn't," the little girl said. "Before you all came here, I simply didn't know anything, but now I find myself remembering things at random intervals and in random-sized chunks, and only things that relate to the foundation of Yggdrasil. Also, before you ask, I can't remember any of the finer details about Shadows, at the moment."

"Do you know anything about Freydis? About my Persona? Or this thing?" Byleth asked, holding up the strange device she used to attack the giant bird from earlier. It disappeared a second later, but she paid it little mind.

"No, I don't—wait, something's coming to me. Yes, yes, it's a little inkling of something. A Persona, that weird power you awakened to, it's supposed to be a manifestation of your psyche, the part of you that the world gets to see and is capable of fighting the Shadows, which are the opposite of a Persona, I think?"

"I see." If that's what a Persona was, then Freydis saying that she and Byleth were the same person—at least something along those lines—made a lot of sense. It still didn't explain everything, though, like why Byleth was able to summon her when she did, or how the man in black and the strange thing he did with the Shadows fit into all of it, or the specific way it connected to Yggdrasil, at all.

The only thing that came to mind was how Freydis looking like a warrior reminded Byleth of what Igor said about the Velvet Room resembling a battlefield. It was either astonishingly appropriate or another strange coincidence.

"This truly is strange. Besides the Crest connection, there's too little we know about any of this," Dimitri said.

"What Crest connection?" Byleth asked.

"You summoned that Persona thing by summoning an image of your Crest, so there's clearly a connection between the two," Claude said.

"That doesn't sound right."

"Agreed. Let's not be so quick to add even _more _importance to them," Edelgard said.

"No, it doesn't sound right because I don't have a Crest." Everyone save for the little girl looked at Byleth as if she had grown a second head, and she was pretty sure that she hadn't.

"You're kidding, right?" Claude asked.

"I don't think I know how to do that."

"You sure? Because that sounds like a pretty weird joke to me," Dimitri said. "You have to have a Crest; it's impossible for you not to have one."

"Is it, though? I'm seriously asking because I don't know," the little girl said.

"Of course it is! I can't recognize it, myself, but what else could that symbol you drew in the air be if not a Crest?" Byleth merely shrugged her shoulders.

"It does bear some resemblance to our own Crests, if only from a design standpoint," Edelgard said. She, Dimitri, and Claude all held out their hands, and in front of each of them appeared a distinctly-shaped symbol of red light. It took Byleth a second, but she recognized them from a history book her father bought her some time ago; Edelgard's was the Crest of Seiros, Dimitri's the Crest of Blaiddyd, and Claude's the Crest of Riegan.

"Huh. There is a bit of a resemblance," the little girl said.

"I never knew I had a Crest, though," Byleth said as the three of them made the lights vanish.

"So nothing out of the ordinary has never happened to you? Nothing that couldn't be explained away through normal means?" Edelgard asked. "Even if it was just a minor thing like finding yourself feeling less tired than you should or—"

"Sometimes, when I'm fighting someone, my wounds will heal themselves a little, even though no one used any Faith magic on me," Byleth cut in. "Would that count as a Crest?"

"Yeah, and you _probably_ should have assumed that a while ago," Claude said. "Obliviousness aside, why did you summon your Persona by drawing something you've never even seen before?"

Byleth shrugged her shoulders again. Claude gave a face that probably meant he was growing frustrated, but she honestly had no idea why she drew what was apparently a Crest. If she had to guess, however, she'd say it was done on instinct, though that hardly felt like a satisfying answer.

"This is all confusing, right? It is for me, anyway; I can barely wrap my empty head around any of this," the little girl said.

"It really is strange, but even if we found answers to all of it, they'll end up meaningless if we can't get out of here," Edelgard said.

"The Bifrost," Byleth stated.

"Yes, that was the name that man gave it, but it doesn't exactly help us."

"True. It'd be one thing if one of us could simply summon that rainbow at will, but that is simply not the case," the little girl said.

"You're glowing," Byleth stated.

"Yes, I do feel rather good about myself, right now."

"You're glowing."

"We've been over that. Why repeat yourself?"

"Because she's being literal!" Dimitri said, his voice conveying what Byleth assumed to be shock. It was only then that the little girl seemed to be aware of what Byleth was trying to tell. Of how her body was glowing a rainbow-colored light that perfectly matched the light of the Bifrost.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what?! What is this?!" the little girl asked.

"You're glowing," Byleth said.

"That's not helping!"

"No, but you're about to be, little girl," Claude said.

"I am not a child, and what do you mean?"

"I believe he's saying that your body glowing like the Bifrost must mean you have the ability to harness its power, which means you can send us back home," Edelgard said.

"She can?" Dimitri asked.

"I can?" the little girl asked. She mumbled something under her breath before pointing her hands out in front of her. Nothing happened for a few seconds, but then out of nowhere, all of the rainbow light left her body and was fired out into a beam that turned into a pillar of rainbow light in front of everyone.

"You're not glowing," Byleth said.

"What an astute observation." Byleth nodded her head in agreement.

"This pillar of light certainly does look like the Bifrost. Is it safe, though?" Dimitri asked.

"Not like we have a lot of other options. Besides, this thing didn't kill us bringing us here, so it shouldn't kill us bringing us home," Claude said.

"Yeah, so you guys go in and go back home," the little girl said.

"You'll be all alone here."

"We can't worry about that, right now," Edelgard said.

"That's right. You can't just stay here, not when you actually have people who will worry about you." The tone in the little girl's voice briefly shifted in a way Byleth didn't recognize. "I'll try and stay away from the Shadows and that guy in black until we have a chance to meet up again. My hide-and-seek skills are top-notch, so you have nothing to worry about!"

"Okay, we'll leave for now, but we'll come back as soon as we can!" Dimitri said. He stepped into the Bifrost, and after the light fluctuated for a second, he completely vanished.

"Try to remember a few more things before. Really looking forward to picking your brain!" Claude said before jumping into the Bifrost and vanishing, as well. Edelgard remained silent as she stepped in and disappeared, as well.

"Don't die," Byleth said.

"And leave you all alone in the world? As if," the little girl said with a smile. Byleth nodded her head and stepped into the Bifrost, the rainbow light washing over her in an instant.

She really did want to see her again.

* * *

Entering the Bifrost the second time had the same blinding effect it did the first time, and for about the same duration of time. When Byleth's vision returned to her that time, however, neither she nor her companions were being propelled through the air like they were before. Instead, they were standing back in the outskirts of Remire where the Bifrost first took them, only now there was a large, intricate symbol burned into the grass beneath their feet. Members of Jeralt's company were scattered about with their horses and some carriages, but none took notice of them as their attention was taken by some people dressed in white.

All of a sudden, she felt rather tired.

"Yes, we're back! Man, I'm _so_ glad that worked," Claude said.

"This is exactly where we were when we were taken, though it looks a little closer to dawn now," Dimitri said. "That reminds me, we were in the middle of fighting those bandits when all of this started. Did everything turn out all right?"

"Let's find Byleth's father and ask him," Edelgard said.

The search for Jeralt ended up a short one, for within seconds of their return, he rode up to them on Gamigin; the look on his face was one Byleth couldn't perfectly decipher, but she knew it meant that he was either angry or constipated.

"Hi, Dad," Byleth said.

"Don't 'Hi, Dad' me!" Jeralt said. It appeared that Byleth had guessed wrong. "Do you have any idea how worried I was? I thought this whole place was going to end up like Ailell, and even when that was wrong, you just vanished into thin air! I didn't know _what_ to think!"

"We didn't die."

"That's not the point! And worst of all, because of all of that, you left me all alone with—"

"Captain Jeralt, please stop running off!" Jeralt let out a groan as heavy footsteps sounded off in their direction. Byleth turned to see a stocky, mustachioed man running towards them who was dressed in white armor and a cape that bore the Crest of Seiros. Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude looked at him as if he were familiar, so that plus the cape and the armor led Byleth to assume that he was a Knight of Seiros. "Every time I turn my back, you try and disappear on me. I'd almost think you were running away from me if we weren't such good friends—hey, the children are back!"

"Alois! It's good to see you again. Sorry for making you worry," Dimitri said.

"Think nothing of it; it's our fault for taking so long to get here and making you fend for yourselves!" Alois said with a big grin. "Speaking of which, what happened to Professor Kamoshida? He was supposed to be supervising you, yes?"

"And he did a great job of it for about five minutes before hightailing it out of there at the first sign of trouble. Seriously, if you're going to run away, at least have a plan in mind," Claude said.

"Well, that's not good at all! He better have a good excuse if he wants to keep his job."

"I hope he doesn't. The man made a lot of the girls at the monastery feel uncomfortable, myself included, and we don't need a teacher like that," Edelgard said.

"Well, in any case, it's good that you three were able to stay safe for as long as you did. Then again, that must have been an easy task with Captain Jeralt assisting you!"

"I told you to stop calling me that," Jeralt said.

"You are a captain, though," Byleth said.

"This is something else."

"And you must be his daughter, Byleth! What a pleasure to meet you!" Alois stopped smiling for a second as he stepped closer to Byleth. "I swear, you look just like—no, that's impossible, the dates don't add up. How peculiar, though." Jeralt groaned again, for some reason.

"You're making Dad uncomfortable," Byleth said.

"Am I? Hah! Overprotective of his little girl, eh? Boy, do I know the feeling! I tell you, he was shaking like a leaf waiting for you all to come back. Did a giant rainbow really swallow you whole?"

"It took us into another world filled with monsters."

"Another world, you say? How incredibly surreal!" Edelgard wore a worried look for a brief moment before adopting one of relief. At the same time, Alois patted Byleth on the back once, and when he moved for a second part, Byleth stepped out of the way in time, the miss making him stumble a little.

"Personal space."

"Ha! A real chip off the old block!" Alois let out a hearty laugh. Byleth didn't know what was funny, but she wouldn't have been surprised if a joke flew over her head. "Speaking of which, Captain—"

"You want me to come back to the monastery, don't you?" Jeralt asked. "Well, if she's going to know I'm still alive, I don't really have a choice here."

"You make meeting the Archbishop sound like a death sentence!" Jeralt simply shrugged his shoulders. "Well, no matter! Let us return to Garreg Mach at once. The children need to check in with the staff, and I'm sure the Archbishop would like to be the first to hear more about what exactly went on here!"

"Lead the way, then," Jeralt said. Alois stepped away from the group and went back to the other Knights.

"Is he why you hate the Church?" Byleth asked. Dimitri raised an eyebrow, for some reason.

"If Alois was the only problem I had with them, then it wouldn't be worth the trouble."

"How do you know him?"

"I'll tell you later. Let's just go." Byleth nodded her head. She supposed that this meant their next mission was cancelled. That was fine. She had been to the Kingdom plenty of times already, but she had never even been within walking distance of Garreg Mach. It would be nice to see what kind of food they served there once she was done talking about what happened earlier.

"First, sleep," Byleth said before jumping onto an unmanned carriage and lying down on her back.

"You're tired? I've seen you go for three days without sleep and be perfectly fine."

"It must be a side effect of obtaining that new power," Edelgard said. Jeralt opened his mouth for a second before shutting it and shaking his head.

"Sleepy." Byleth took off her jacket and folded it into a makeshift pillow that she rested her head upon.

"Fine, I'll give you a ride, kid. You three might as well get in, too," Jeralt said. He hooked the carriage up to Gamigin as Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude stepped on.

"Sleepy."

"Not gonna lie, you probably have the right idea here," Claude said, propping his quiver up like a pillow and resting his head upon it.

"You can honestly sleep at a time after everything that's happened?" Dimitri asked.

"I'd certainly like to." Jeralt started riding off as the two of them continued their back and forth.

Just as the ride started to get going, Edelgard scooted over to Byleth's side.

"Sleepy," Byleth said.

"I won't keep for long, I swear," Edelgard said. "I know that a lot has happened today, but at the very least, I want to thank you for protecting me twice today, especially since one instance happened when I allowed such an unsightly side of myself to surface."

"Are you sad?" Edelgard looked taken back. "I'm not good with faces or tones of voice, but you look like how my Dad gets once a year during the Horsebow Moon, and I think he's sad when that happens."

"I suppose that's part of it," Edelgard eventually said.

"Don't be. You did nothing wrong. You're fine."

"I—Thank you, Byleth." If Byleth had to guess, Edelgard was probably happy now.

"Sleepy." She would guess about it later, though. For now, it was time to sleep.

* * *

Byleth was only asleep for a few seconds before her eyes shot open. She wasn't in her father's carriage, and none of her companions were around her.

Once again, she was sitting in the blue tent pitched in the middle of a war zone known as the Velvet Room, with Igor and Adam right in front of her.

"Welcome back," Igor said. "I have summoned you here within your dreams, so do not be alarmed."

"I wasn't," Byleth said.

"Of course you weren't," Adam said, grinning a little.

"Congratulations on awakening to your powers," Igor said. "With this, we can now begin to provide you assistance, so long as you make sure to abide by the contract and take responsibility for your actions."

"Okay." Igor let out a small laugh. "Do you know anything about Personas?"

"Indeed I do, though your little friend already covered most of the basics. As she said, a Persona is a mask one wears to deal with the hardships of reality and protect their hearts from others. Your Persona, however, is unique even amongst others, for it grants you the power of the Wild Card."

"What's that?"

"It is a power only a select few can obtain. Think of it as the number zero: empty, yet holding infinite potential within itself," Adam said.

"I don't get it."

"Fear not, it will all make sense in due time," Igor said. "For now, take this." Igor pulled out a small key colored the same blue as the Velvet Room and handed it to Byleth. "With this key, you can enter this room at your leisure without needing to be asleep. I predict we'll have much more to talk about by the first time you decide to use it."

"If you say so." She wanted that to be it, but then she remembered something Igor said. "Other people can use Personas?"

"But of course. It might be a special power, but it's not so special that only you can use it," Adam said.

"Where are they?"

"Adam and I aren't in a position to tell you something like that, but with any luck, you'll see new Persona users be born before your very eyes. You seem to be around the right people for it."

Byleth blinked in succession. He was saying that she knew people who could become Persona users. She didn't know a lot of people, so the list of people it could be was small. It'd be nice if the little girl ended up one, she probably wouldn't like it if someone from the company had it happen to them, and she didn't know how to feel about the idea of her father getting a Persona.

It was also possible that he meant the three people she just went through her ordeal with.

"Your body is awakening in the real world. Until we meet again." Byleth wanted to say something, but it was just as Igor said.

She was awake.

* * *

When Byleth opened her eyes, the sun had completely risen; that, combined with the sprawling cityscape around her, told her that they had arrived at Garreg Mach. The carriage was parked in front of a bar, and not at all to her surprise, Jeralt was walking towards the door.

"With what's happened and what's going to happen, I don't want a word out of you," Jeralt said.

"Fine," Byleth said, though as he entered the bar, she felt that she would have liked at least one. Byleth sat up, and as she was putting her jacket back on, something soft fell off of her body. It was Edelgard's cape. She was probably missing it, so she needed to get it back to her. Fortunately, Edelgard was easy to find, but for some reason, she was outside of the carriage and giving her an intense glare, along with one other peculiar factoid.

"Edelgard, you've shrunk."

"Ex_cuse _me?" Edelgard asked in an odd tone and voice. Byleth jumped out of the carriage and landed right in front of Edelgard. With that, she confirmed that Edelgard really did shrink; Byleth was already taller than her, but now the height difference appeared to have doubled, at least.

"Why are you so small, Edelgard?"

"I'm not—you're not so tall either, you know!"

"Taller than you. Now even more than before."

"Size isn't every—Hey!" Byleth cut Edelgard off when she picked her up by her waist.

"You look like a little kid. What happened? Is this because of the World Tree?"

"Unhand me, you psycho! I have Dark Spikes, and I'm not afraid to use them!"

"What is going on here?" Byleth heard a familiar voice. She turned her head to see that it was, in fact, Dimitri walking over to her with Claude—who was laughing, for some reason—and what appeared to be a second Edelgard holding a paper bag.

"Why are there two Edelgards?"

"There aren't! Now put me down, already!" Tiny Edelgard said. Byleth was still confused, but she did as she was told, and Tiny Edelgard quickly ran over to Not as Tiny Edelgard's side.

"Byleth Eisner, Lysithea von Ordelia. Lysithea, Byleth. Are we all on the same page now?" Edelgard asked.

"Oh," was all Byleth said. Upon closer inspection, Lysithea's eyes had a pinkish hue to them whereas Edelgard's leaned more towards purple or lavender.

"Man I wish that had lasted longer. That was hilarious!" Claude said, earning him a glare from Lysithea.

"Sorry. You two look alike," Byleth said. "Your eyes are different, but your hair, your face, and…" Byleth's eyes ran up and down Edelgard and Lysithea's bodies, her focus drawn to a couple of specific areas of focus. "Nice to meet you."

"Wait, what were you looking at, just now?" Lysithea asked.

"More importantly, why were you watching her sleep, Lysithea?" Dimitri asked.

"I wasn't doing that, I was simply trying to analyze her," Lysithea said. "A knight flew into the monastery on pegasus saying that Edelgard had her life saved by a mercenary woman, so I came into town hoping to find her and see what kind of person she was. As it turns out, she's nothing but a nut."

"Peanut or cashew?" Byleth asked.

"Why does that matter?"

"I like one more than the other."

"Edelgard, I sincerely worry for your safety around her."

"I think I'll be fine, thank you," Edelgard said with a smile that was quickly mirrored by Lysithea.

"So no worry for my safety, then?" Claude asked. "I get why you wouldn't bother putting Dimitri on your radar—"

"Hey!" Dimitri cut in.

"—but I'm your house leader, aren't I? It's always Edelgard who gets your attention. Where's the love for little old Claude?"

"You're taller than her," Byleth said.

"Stop saying that! And as for you, Claude, it's not my fault that Edelgard's just better than you, now is it?"

"Agree to disagree." Claude and Lysithea went into a back and forth about that as Edelgard and Dimitri walked over to Byleth.

"I'm sorry about Lysithea. We've been friends since before coming to Garreg Mach, and she sometimes gets too attached to me," Edelgard said.

"Then again, she's hardly the worst of your friends Byleth could have woken up to," Dimitri said.

"What's in the bag?" Byleth asked.

"This? I thought you might be hungry after you woke up, so I went to a nearby shop to buy you a sandwich," Edelgard said. "I didn't know what you liked, so I just got one of everything."

"I'm okay with that," Byleth said as she took the bag from Edelgard. The first one she unwrapped was a grilled cheese that ended up devoured in seconds. The second one was a tuna fish sandwich that was consumed equally fast.

"You should probably wait until later to eat those," Dimitri said. "We're about to meet with the Archbishop, so—"

"Not all of us, just me and the kid." Out of nowhere, Jeralt reappeared on the scene. Byleth could tell just by looking at him that he had had a few, though surprisingly, it seemed like he had less than he usually did in these kinds of situations.

"But they went to the World Tree, too," Byleth said in-between bites of a peanut butter sandwich.

"The what? Where did you guys go?" Lysithea asked.

"I'll explain later," Edelgard said. "Back to the matter at hand, it would seem that the Church thinks that Byleth and her father's perspective is the only one that matters. Either that or they want the two of them alone when they say whatever they plan to say, as if they fear we could instill some form of bias within them."

"Come now, I'm sure there's no ill will at play here. They probably feel that we need a break before asking us about it, is all," Dimitri said. Dimitri looked rather assured of his hypothesis, but Edelgard's face didn't seem to match his.

"Well, not much we can do about it. Meet us in the dining hall when you're done, okay?" Claude asked. Byleth liked the sound of that. "All righty, then. Don't wanna hold you up by making you drop us off, so we'll head back on our own. See ya!" The four turned away from Byleth—Lysithea being the quickest to do so—and headed off towards the monastery.

"Come on, kid, let's get this done," Jeralt said as he hopped into Gamigin. Byleth moved towards the carriage, but stopped, grabbed something she nearly forgot about, and ran over to Edelgard.

"Your cape," Byleth said. "You dropped it and it fell on me during the ride here." Edelgard blinked a few times in rapid succession, and all of a sudden, she looked like she was coming down with a fever.

"Yes. That's right. That's what happened, and I thank you for returning this to me. Goodbye," Edelgard said with great haste as she took her cape out of Byleth's hands and walked ahead of her group. The other three did their best to keep up, and Byleth shrugged her shoulders before hopping into the carriage and letting her father ride off.

"Oh boy. This is going to be hard to watch. Downright painful, even." Byleth turned her head to see the little girl floating in the air next to her.

"You didn't die," Byleth said.

"Of course not. I told you that I couldn't leave you all alone, didn't I?"

"Thank you."

"Huh? What are you thanking me for?" Jeralt asked.

"Not you," Byleth said. Jeralt turned away from her and went back to looking at the road, mumbling something about having too much to drink.

"Yes, it would seem that you're the only one who can see or hear me. How strange," the little girl said.

"Indeed."

"Well, we can figure it out later. For now, let's see how things go with this Archbishop person. It could certainly be interesting."

"Maybe," Byleth said as she started eating a chicken sandwich. "Want some?"

"Of course! Food is all you think about when you're not thinking about fighting, so it'll be nice to see what all the fuss is about." Byleth broke her sandwich in half and handed one half to the little girl.

The half of the sandwich phased through her hands and fell to the floor of the carriage, a mess of its former self.

"Are you sure you didn't die?" Byleth asked.

"I'd remember if I died, you know!" That was probably true, but it did little to solve the issue of the ruined sandwich.

* * *

Within no time at all, Byleth and Jeralt had arrived at Garreg Mach Monastery. Jeralt left Gamigin in a stable he located with ease and directed her through the main building without skipping a beat, like he knew the layout like the back of his hand. It seemed like there was some truth to what Alois said about him once working for the Church.

She'd worry about that more once she was done eating.

"Must be nice, being able to eat food," the little girl said as they climbed the stairs. "I wonder what the last thing I ate was. Something spicy, maybe? Or sweet? Sweet and sour?"

"Like the pork?" Byleth asked in-between bites of an egg salad sandwich.

"Is that a thing? Is it good?" Byleth nodded her head as she unwrapped her last sandwich. "Okay, then! Let's make that the first thing I eat once all of this stuff is worked out."

"Okay."

"What's okay?" Jeralt asked. Byleth simply stared at him and shrugged her shoulders. Jeralt just shook his head as they kept walking.

"Going forward, we need to come up with a way of communicating that doesn't make you look like a mental patient to any onlookers." Byleth agreed with that, but she was too busy with her sandwich to say anything.

As she and Jeralt made their way to the second floor, Byleth finished eating her sandwich, though a piece of cucumber ended up falling onto her chest.

"I know what you're thinking, and the answer is no. Whatever you do, do _not _eat that cleavage cucumber," the little girl said.

"Fine," Byleth said, fishing it out and tossing it onto the floor somewhere.

"Goddess, I wish we weren't doing this," Jeralt said.

"We could leave."

"If only it were that easy." It seemed easy to Byleth. They just needed to go back to Gamigin and leave the monastery, plain and simple. It could be that easy if they wanted it to be, yet her father was still opening the door to the Archbishop's chamber and walking her inside.

The room they entered was as large as Byleth imagined it would be and almost as fancy—it would have been exactly as fancy if there was a fountain somewhere. Standing near the back was a man in dark blue robes and a cape with a head and a small beard of dark green hair. Sitting in the throne next to him was a woman in fanciful white robes, a golden cape and headdress, and long, green hair of a lighter shade than the man's. Her eyes met Byleth's, and her stoic expression became a smile that seemed a little too big to wear on a first meeting with someone.

This was Byleth's first time seeing the Archbishop, and if she was being honest, she didn't know what to make of it.

"So Alois' report was true," the Archbishop said. "When you disappeared in that fire twenty-one years ago, most had assumed the worst, but I knew better. I knew you were still alive and would find your way back to us one way or another, and here you are. It truly is wonderful to see you again, Jeralt."

"Likewise, Lady Rhea," Jeralt said, the words sounding a bit forced. "Apologies for disappearing the way I did. With everything that had happened with, well, you know, I wanted to get away from everything for a while, and I just jumped on the first chance I saw."

"All is forgiven, now that you have returned to me," Rhea said. "Oh, where are my manners? Please, allow me to introduce you to my advisor, Seteth."

"A pleasure to meet you, Jeralt," Seteth said. The entire conversation was giving Byleth an odd feeling of deja vu. "Lady Rhea has told me much about the legendary Blade Breaker, so it's nice to finally put a face to the name."

"You know about him being a mercenary?" Byleth asked. Both Jeralt and the little girl shook their heads, for some reason.

"We've been informed of Jeralt's current line of work, but Blade Breaker was also the moniker he bore when he was captain of the Knights of Seiros. Did you not know about that?"

"But Dad hates the Church." Rhea's head almost seemed to snap forward. The little girl jumped back a bit while muttering something about Byleth's intelligence.

"Hate's a _strong_ word. I know I didn't leave here on the best of terms, but I'm too old to hate anything, really," Jeralt said. Byleth didn't believe that. She felt she understood her father just enough to tell when he was lying, and she felt that this was one of those instances. However, at the behest of the little girl, she kept quiet about it.

"You don't know how happy it makes me to hear that, Jeralt," Rhea said. "If there truly is no ill will between us, would you care to take up your old position? Our last captain just retired, and an experienced hand such as yours would go a long way."

"Well, now that you've found me, I guess it's not the kind of thing I can run away from. I'm sure the gang will appreciate having a more steady cash flow, at least."

"Splendid. Now that everything is taken care of with you…" Rhea turned her attention back to Byleth. At that time, she finally stood up from her throne and walked over to Byleth until she was standing right in front of her; the sudden closeness made the little girl jump back a bit. Byleth could almost feel her breath on her face; it was a strange sort of something. "You're Jeralt's child, yes?"

"Byleth Eisner," Byleth said.

"A fine name, indeed. Jeralt, was she born after you left us?"

"A few years after, yes. Unfortunately, her mother died of illness while she was an infant, and she was separated from her family at the time, so this is it," Jeralt said.

"I see. How unfortunate." Rhea's eyes moved up and down, almost as if they were analyzing Byleth to discern some unknown truth. It was similar to what Alois had done, and while it was good that she wasn't being touched, Rhea was still a little too close for comfort.

"Lady Rhea, if we may get back on track, please," Seteth said.

"Yes, of course. My apologies." Rhea stopped looking at her in that way and stepped back a little.

"At least someone here has a basic understanding of boundaries," the little girl said as she floated near the ceiling. Byleth nodded her head, but it appeared to go unnoticed.

"I'm told that you were the one who protected the students of the Officers Academy, and for that I thank you," Rhea said. "I was also told that a rainbow sent the four of you into another world? Care to explain that?"

"It was the Bifrost," Byleth said.

"The Bifrost? What is that?" Seteth asked.

"It takes you to Yggdrasil."

"And what is _that_?"

"The World Tree. It's full of Shadows that bad people use to do bad things with." Seteth gave her a look that she didn't quite understand, but had a feeling wasn't meant to be positive.

"That's not helping them, kid," Jeralt said.

"Just do the thing," the little girl said. Byleth nodded her head and traced her mystery Crest in the air, a copy of it in green light forming in front of her.

"Persona." Byleth slammed her hand against the light, summoning a pillar of green fire that Freydis quickly emerged from.

"Huh. I didn't actually think that would work here."

"Same." Byleth realized a little too late that she probably shouldn't have said that, but no one in the room seemed to notice. They were all busy with their own variety of expressions; Jeralt looked confused, Seteth looked shocked, and Rhea looked happy, but at the same time, tears were welling up in her eyes, so she should have been sad; hers was the most confusing of the bunch.

"What the hell?" Jeralt asked.

"I don't believe it! How is this possible?!" Seteth asked.

"It's a miracle, Seteth. It's a blessing from the Goddess, nothing more, nothing less. That is the only answer for such a blessed sight as a Persona!" Rhea said, tears fully dripping down her face.

"You know about Personas," Byleth said, failing to convey the legitimate amount of surprise she was feeling.

"Yes. It's a divine power that has controlled the fate of the world since before the Goddess descended upon Fodlan. It is a power of miracles, and when one who wields a Persona manages to nurture it to its peak, that is the sign that the world will enter a new age of providence. I had only been fortunate enough to meet a few Persona users over the years, but none could hone their abilities before passing on, and after what happened to the last one I had encountered, I had given up hope of ever meeting one again. But now you stand before me with this blessed power, and thanks to this, my hope springs eternal, once more!"

"No pressure, or anything," the little girl said. Byleth didn't know why she said that when there was clearly a lot of pressure to be found.

Nor did she understand the face her father was making at that moment.

"This is absurd. Truly absurd!" Seteth said. "How could a random woman like you be blessed with a Persona? It's not the kind of power that just anyone can obtain, so how does an ordinary person like yourself end up with it?"

"There was a man in a mask…" Byleth stopped herself at once, for she had no idea where she wanted to go with that. "It was the World Tree."

"That is not an answer!"

"Whatever the case, this is proof that my decision was the right one," Rhea said, wiping the tears away from her face. "Byleth, your father isn't the only one I want to stay here. I want you to be here, as well."

"I'm in the company," Byleth said.

"I don't mean for you to be a Knight, I mean for you to be a teacher at the Officers Academy." Everyone else I'm the room, save for Byleth, let out a collective "What?"

"You want her to teach?" Jeralt asked.

"Of course. I'm sure you already heard it from Alois or one of the students, but one of our professors, Professor Kamoshida, abandoned the children he was in charge of at the first sign of trouble and ran off to protect himself; he has yet to return to the monastery, but I see no reason to not treat such cowardice as a letter of resignation. Your daughter, on the other hand, didn't hesitate to protect them with her life, and that is the kind of person we need in our employ."

"Am I qualified to be a teacher?" Byleth asked.

"My thoughts, exactly," Seteth said. "Lady Rhea, I must object to this decision. We know nothing about this woman other than the fact that she can't hold a conversation to save her life! Even if she is Jeralt's daughter, even if she is a Persona user, there are too many unknowns for us to put our trust in her!"

"You needn't worry, Seteth," Rhea said. "If she is even half the soldier her father is, her credentials need not be questioned and her loyalty can be counted upon. Not only that, but the fact that she _is _a Persona user means that we have a duty to observe her growth."

"So me having a Persona is all you care about?" Rhea stopped looking as happy as she did before. The little girl seemed to find it funny, but Byleth didn't know why; she was just asking a question.

"It is certainly something that has captured our interest, but it's hardly the only thing. Still, if you agree to teach here, then I, and all other members of the Church of Seiros, will do all that we can to assist you in whatever journey you are fated to walk."

"I see." Was that something that would even happen, though?

"Becoming a professor entitles you to a monthly stipend of three thousand gold pieces." Igor and Adam also acted like there was something big in store for her, but it didn't go further than implications. "You'll have full access to the training grounds and library to hone your strength and knowledge." She had spent her whole life just following after her father, so who was she to become anything important? "There are some general guidelines to follow, but beyond them, you're free to teach however you see fit." More importantly, if she truly did have some sort of important destiny to be following, was it one that required her to be in a place that confused her so much? A place that had people she seemed to get along with, yet was also a place that sparked so much tension within her father? "Oh, speaking of facilities, you also have unlimited access to the greenhouse, the sauna, the kitchen—"

"I'll do it."

"She'll do it!" the little girl said. Byleth didn't know what she was responding to, but that, along with the exact nature of Rhea's current smile, could be dealt with later.

For now, she knew exactly where she needed to be.


	4. Their Song

After agreeing to become the newest professor of Garreg Mach, Rhea and Seteth excused themselves from the room to fetch the other two professors Byleth would be working with for the year, leaving her and Jeralt as the only two people in the room—two out of three if one were to count the little girl.

"Why didn't you tell me you worked for the Church?" Byleth asked after a few minutes had gone by.

"Let's talk about this later, kid," Jeralt said.

"Okay." One second later, it was later. "Why didn't you tell me you worked for the Church?"

"Did you do that on purpose?" the little girl asked as she floated overhead.

"Look, let's just say that I had a hell of a bad time and leave it at that, okay?" Jeralt asked.

"So why are we still here? We can just leave, can't we?" Byleth asked.

"As I said before, now that they know I'm still alive, that won't be so easy." Byleth didn't know why that would be the case when they just had to get on their horses and leave. She wanted to point that out to him, but before she had the chance to, the door to the Archbishop's chamber opened up and two people stepped through it: a woman with a white cape and a green dress that showed a lot of skin and a man with a gray beard and mustache and a monocle against his eye.

"So you're the new professor, then. My, how stern and handsome you are!" the woman said to Jeralt, for some reason. Byleth would have corrected her, but she was now standing very close to Jeralt, meaning there was a chance she'd do the same to her, and that would be unpleasant.

"That would be her, actually," Jeralt said as he backed away from her. A clear act of betrayal, that was.

"Oh, my mistake. She's not so bad, either, though." Byleth did see herself as a good person, overall.

"Okay, you gonna be okay, kid?" Jeralt asked. Byleth nodded her head. "Good. I'll get going then; that Seteth guy needs me to fill out some paperwork before I'm officially reinstated; there's another reason I didn't want to come back here." Byleth said her goodbyes as Jeralt headed for the door. However, before he left the room, he stopped next to Byleth and whispered to her, "Watch out for Lady Rhea. Stay on your guard around her at all costs." It seemed odd for her father to go out of his way to tell her to be on guard around people, but it probably had to do with whatever it was he wasn't telling her. Something to think about for later.

"Now that your father is gone, let us introduce ourselves. I'm Manuela Casagrande. In addition to being a professor, I'm also a talented physician, the beautiful woman formerly known as the Divine Songstress of the Mittelfrank Opera Company, and happily available for the right person," the woman said, punctuating her sentence with a wink.

"I don't feel like having sex with you," Byleth said. From up in the air, the little girl started laughing like a madwoman.

"I—It was mostly a joke, but—So quick to—Hanneman, you say something. I need to sit in a corner for a while." Manuela walked off to the edge of the room, muttering random things under her breath as she sat down in a corner and hugged her knees.

"That's not a comfortable way to sit." The little girl was still laughing.

"Yes, well, moving on. I am Hanneman von Essar. My primary field of study is Crestology, but I would still like to study that Persona of yours if you have the spare time," Hanneman said.

"You know about that?"

"But of course! Lady Rhea has had word of it spread throughout the entire monastery. I swear, I've never seen her so enthusiastic about anything before, and I'd be lying if I said that none of it rubbed off on myself."

"Ah." Byleth didn't have much of an opinion on that, but his mention of being a Crest Scholar brought something to mind. "What's this Crest?" Byleth put out her hand and projected the image of what was apparently her Crest.

Hanneman's monocle fell off of his face as his mouth fell agape. The little girl kept laughing.

"Wh-What in the world is this?!"

"My Crest."

"Yes, but what _is _it?! By the Goddess, in all my years of study, I've never seen a Crest that resembled this one before!"

"Can I get a second opinion, then?"

"It's not because I'm bad at my job!" The little girl kept laughing.

"By the way, what's mine?" Hanneman mumbled something before putting his monocle back in place.

"Right, I suppose we should get to that. Lady Rhea has hired you to be a professor at the Officers Academy this year, and what that means is that you will be in charge of the education of one of three houses: the Black Eagles of the Adrestian Empire, the Blue Lions of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, or the Golden Deers of the Leicester Alliance. Coincidentally, the leaders of each house this year are the same students you saved earlier today."

"Which one is mine?"

"That has yet to be determined. Which professor goes to which house isn't decided until the day before classes begin, which is tomorrow. Lady Rhea set up this meeting mostly so Manuela and I could get to know you, though that might not have gone the way she had hoped." Hanneman said the last part while looking at Manuela, still sitting in a corner doing whatever it was she was doing. "Nevertheless, please return here tomorrow morning for further instructions from the Archbishop."

Byleth agreed to that, but it wasn't as if there was a reason not to. Hanneman, with a good deal of struggle, dragged Manuela back onto her feet and out of the chamber, all the while talking about how he needed to get to his books; Byleth couldn't help but wonder what sort of stories he was into.

"Oh man, that was great!" The little girl said, no longer laughing as she floated down to Byleth.

"It was a successful meeting," Byleth said. "Why were you laughing so much?"

"You wouldn't get it." That was probably true, Byleth thought. "If we're done here, those three are waiting for us. I believe we agreed to meet at the dining hall."

Byleth was happy that that was the location.

* * *

Upon exiting the audience chamber and returning to the stables, Byleth realized that she had no idea how to get where she needed to go. Fortunately, she ran into a gatekeeper who was able to point her in the right direction with a smile on his face, and from there, it only took a minute to find the dining hall. It was smaller than she had imagined, but there was a pleasant aroma filling the air, either way. She could work with this.

"That must be the new professor, the alleged daughter of the Blade Breaker," Byleth heard a girl wearing a necklace emblazoned with a seashell say as she made her way to the counter.

"She's supposed to have some sort of supernatural ability that puts her above the average warrior. How intriguing," Byleth heard a boy with crows feet in the middle of sharpening his sword say as she ordered two large-sized pizzas from the chef.

"She's certainly easy on the eyes, that's for sure," Byleth heard a girl wearing a fashionable hat say while she waited for her order to be completed; another girl with blonde hair done in a large braid said something in response to that in a tone Byleth didn't assume to be happy, but she was too focused on waiting for her food to fully listen. Byleth kept hearing various comments of that nature all the way up until her order was complete, and it continued as she looked for a table to sit at.

"Byleth, over here!" Fortunately, Claude was there to direct her to one being occupied by Edelgard, Dimitri, and himself.

"Hello," Byleth said before sitting down. Everyone grabbed a slice of pizza and started eating; Byleth wasn't aware that she was getting food for everyone, but it wasn't worth making a scene. "People are talking about me."

"Yes, Lady Rhea wasted no time having word about you spread across the monastery. Well, I guess it's good to get the gossip out of the way early on," Edelgard said. "Tell me, did she know what a Persona was before you told her?"

"I'm going to change the world with Freydis."

"That's certainly a unique way for her to react. Don't you agree, Professor?"

"My name is Byleth."

"Yes, but since you'll be teaching here now, it makes sense to address you with something more formal, doesn't it?"

"Does it? I don't think we need to talk to Byleth like that after what we've been through," Dimitri said.

"Here, here!" Claude said. "If you ask me, getting thrown into another world filled with monsters means you can be on a first-name basis with someone."

"You can do that if you want, but I'll feel more comfortable like this. This won't be an issue, will it, Professor?" Edelgard asked. Byleth didn't see why it would be, but she also didn't fully understand why she felt the need to do that. Byleth wouldn't be surprised if something was going over her head, but if comfort was an issue, then she could at least understand that, so she told Edelgard that it was fine. "Thank you. How was the meeting, by the way?"

"The Archbishop is weird," Byleth said.

"You think so? Why is that?"

"I don't know. She just is."

"Are you really one to talk about that?" the little girl asked as she materialized above the table. "I guess it's not as if you're wrong, though. She certainly acts matronly, but something about that woman feels a little off to me."

"You're imagining things. Lady Rhea is an exemplary woman," Dimitri said.

"Professor Hanneman doesn't know what my Crest is," Byleth said.

"You should have seen his face when Byleth showed it to him. It was priceless," the little girl said.

"I can imagine. The guy eats, sleeps, and breathes Crestology, after all," Claude said.

"Also, Manuela wants to have sex with me," Byleth said. Edelgard started choking on her pizza, so Byleth reached across the table and struck her in the stomach to make her cough it up.

"You are a woman of complete and utter tact," the little girl said.

"Thank you."

"That's not—What do you mean by that?" Edelgard asked in-between coughs.

"Sex is when two or more people—"

"I meant why! Why was that something that happened?!"

"I mean, the why's kinda obvious, isn't it?" the little girl asked.

"You're not wrong," Claude said.

"I abstain from commenting," Dimitri said, going out of his way to not look in Byleth's direction, for some reason. Edelgard just went back to the pizza.

"Kids these days. I swear, finding ones who don't get awkward around a pretty face is harder than…" the little girl trailed off as the look on her face changed from a humorous one to a startled one. "Wait, have you three been able to hear me this entire time?"

"Yes? Have other people not been able to?" Edelgard asked.

"No! No one could! No one except her!" The little girl pointed at Byleth as she finished eating two slices of pizza at once.

"So you can't be perceived by anyone except the four of us?" Dimitri asked.

"Must be because we all went into Yggdrasil with Byleth. Pretty weird, but it's probably the sanest thing to happen today," Claude said.

"Whatever it is, it's fantastic! Now I can talk to people who actually know how to hold a conversation! No offense," the little girl said.

"For what?" Byleth asked.

"Never mind." Even if something was going over her head, Byleth was happy that the little girl would have other people to talk to, and those other people seemed happy to talk to her. "Speaking of Yggdrasil, I take it that the original purpose of this meeting was related to that, yes?"

"I guess we did get off track here," Edelgard said. "I'll be blunt with you, Professor: the next time you venture into that other world, we want you to take us with you."

"Okay," Byleth said.

"Just like that?"

"Do you want me to say no?" Byleth was honestly curious.

"No, but don't you at least want to hear why?" Byleth shrugged her shoulders. "Well, as dangerous as that other world might be, there's something suspicious going on there, and I'd like to know what it is."

"I feel the same," Dimitri said. "That man in black was clearly up to no good. Plus, if my theory about what we saw is correct, then letting him roam free would be completely unforgivable." Dimitri's expression seemed to darken with his last statement. He hadn't eaten much pizza, so Byleth assumed he was just hungry.

"I don't really have a big speech that can top either of those, but I definitely want to know more about that place, so I'm going, too," Claude said.

"Looks like you've all got a bit of guts in you. As expected of the future leaders of this land," the little girl said. "For the record, Byleth, I'd be tagging along even if we weren't attached at the hip. I don't know for sure if Alfheim is my home, but I still like it there, so if someone's causing trouble, I want to put a stop to it."

"Let's go," Byleth said as she stood up from the table.

"Wait, now?" the little girl asked.

"There's no more food, so it's a good time for it."

"You definitely showed that pizza who's boss, but aren't you tired after all the stuff we did?" Byleth shrugged her shoulders. "Don't lie. I'm in your head, so I know that you're feeling winded."

"I can stand, and that means I can fight."

"Professor, we don't need to leave right this second. If you're not completely up to it, then please don't force yourself on our behalf," Edelgard said. It wasn't as if Byleth was doing anything like that. She was curious about the other world, as well, and the fact that she wasn't too tired to move meant that she had enough strength to fight. At the same time, she had already agreed to go back with the others, so if they thought it wasn't a good idea for them to go right now, then it would be hard to change their opinion on the matter.

"We can go tomorrow."

"Excellent. Let's meet in the yard behind this building at ten. The sooner we head back, the better," Dimitri said. Byleth nodded her head.

"Alrighty, then. Talk to you all tomorrow," Claude said. The specific mention of talking got the little girl excited as they all left the dining hall; she still didn't fully understand the appeal of being able to talk to people, but if she liked it, then good for her.

"I'm bored now," Byleth said.

"Bored eh? Then I guess you won't mind if I choose what we do now?" the little girl asked.

"What is it?"

"The sauna. Let's go!"

"Why?"

"Don't give me that after you promised to do what I wanted without question." She didn't say that. "We're going to the sauna because it's a sauna! Just think about what that might entail!"

"Steam?"

"You truly do lack imagination and excitement. Don't overthink it, let's just go, go, go!"

* * *

Byleth did end up going to the sauna as the little girl had asked. The staff member in charge handed her a brown shirt and shorts combo for her to wear inside and instructed her to return them once she was finished. It was all rather sensible, so Byleth didn't understand why the little girl looked as if she were going to vomit the entire time she was getting changed, especially since she couldn't eat food.

"This is terrible. We might as well leave right now," the little girl said as they made their way into the steam room. Byleth was blasted with a burst of steam and her head was wet in mere seconds.

"Didn't you want to be here?" Byleth asked.

"Not like this! What's the point of a sauna if they make everyone keep their clothes on?! How do they expect people to properly enjoy the ruggedness of man or the curvature of women when they have to keep their clothes on?!"

"Are people only attractive when they're naked?"

"Of course not, but different settings call for different methods of showing off your charm! Most of the time, it's fine to just get by with good looks and clever wit, but there are circumstances where less is more, and this is one of them!"

"The less being clothes."

"Exactly! If not fully nude, then at least a towel would have been enough! At least a towel!" The towel must have been important if she had to say it twice, Byleth mused.

"Will you please shut up, already? Your rambling is getting on my nerves." It appeared that they weren't alone. Byleth wiped some steam out of her face and saw a light-haired man with a white mask sitting down on the bench.

"Was I rambling? People usually say that I talk too little," Byleth said.

"I heard more than enough. Any amount of talking will get on one's nerves when they're trying to relax, don't you agree?" the man asked. Byleth shrugged her shoulders, and he then proceeded to start staring at her, or at least in her general area. She really hoped he wouldn't try to touch her. "You're the new professor with the mysterious power, aren't you?"

"Byleth Eisner."

"I am Jeritza von Hrym. I teach fencing and other forms of swordplay at the Officers Academy. I _was _in the running to be a house professor this year, but some unforeseen circumstances prevented that from happening."

"That's too bad."

"It's you. You're the unforeseen circumstances," the little girl said. Jeritza's glare seemed to intensify.

"There's always next year."

"Assuming anything will matter by then," Jeritza said.

"Why wouldn't it?"

"Never mind. I'll be taking my leave now. See you in class, I suppose." Byleth nodded her head and Jeritza left the sauna after throwing one last look in her direction.

"First Rhea, now this guy? This school is just chock full of weirdos. I guess it's perfect for you, then," the little girl said.

"The food is good," Byleth said.

"Right, right." The little girl let out a hum. "That Jeritza guy. Now that I think about it, he sort of reminds me of you."

"Why?"

"I'm—I'm not sure. Just a feeling, or something. You didn't feel any sort of kinship?" Byleth shook her head. "Weird. Well, I'm gonna rest now. See you when I see you." The little girl vanished into her head and Byleth was left alone in the sauna. The little girl was the one who wanted to come here, but Byleth was already there, so there was no point in not staying, especially since she was alone.

Some time later, Byleth exited the sauna feeling hot and wet, but at the same time refreshed. The experience left her feeling slightly more exhausted, but she couldn't help but feel like it made her a little gutsier.

* * *

_**Day 21 of the Great Tree Moon, 1180**_

After she was done with the sauna, the kindly gatekeeper found her and escorted her to where her room would be: the first floor dormitories. With a few exceptions due to space issues, the first floor was reserved for students not of noble lineage, and while she was given a room there because it was the only one available, it was still appropriate. The gatekeeper also brought her to her father's quarters—he seemed excited to do so, for some reason—but he brushed off her attempts to talk to him by saying that he was still busy filling out Seteth's paperwork and that they could talk tomorrow. The open flask on his desk made her question the validity of that, but she retired to her room, regardless.

Eventually, Byleth fell asleep, and her dreams were nothing of the sort that she had been having recently; it was hard to even call what she had that night "dreams", at all. Upon waking, Byleth returned to Rhea's chamber and was instructed to talk with all of the students in order to make an informed decision about which house she would teach for the year. It was only nine in the morning when she was told that, so there was plenty of time for her to get that done before she was due to return to the World Tree, but that still meant she would be talking to random people for an entire hour.

Byleth spent an hour sitting on a bench behind the dining hall before Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude showed up. She made her way through a dozen plates of bacon and eggs before she received her first greeting.

"Will someone come for this?" Byleth asked, pointing to the stack of plates left on the ground.

"Even if no one does, there are more important things for us to worry about," Edelgard said. Byleth supposed she had a point.

"So, we all ready to go? Everyone has what they need, 'cause I sure do," Claude said. "Got a quiver full of arrows, some rope, some vulneraries, a few smoke bombs in case we need to run away, and a few other nifty surprises, just in case."

"What sort of—forget it. The less I know, the better," Dimitri said. "Little girl, whenever you're ready."

"I'm ready right now. Let's go!" The little girl pointed her hands out in front of her just as she did the previous day. Unlike the previous day, however, the Bifrost didn't emerge. "Okay, now!" Nothing happened. "Now!" Nothing happened. "Now, please?" Nothing happened.

"Don't feel too bad. Who among us _hasn't_ had performance anxiety, every now and then?" Claude asked.

"Now is not the time for that, Claude," Dimitri said.

"I don't get it! It should be working, so why isn't anything happening?" the little girl asked. "Wait, let me try something." The little girl vanished from sight, though Byleth could tell that she didn't retreat into the confines of her mind. There was silence for a few seconds before she returned to them. "Okay, I've identified the problem. I was just in Alfheim, and I was able to summon the Bifrost just fine. Therefore, summoning the Bifrost must require someone to possess a physical form, which I notably lack in this world."

"That's a problem," Byleth stated.

"Can't you simply bring us to Yggdrasil _from _Yggdrasil?" Edelgard asked.

"No, it doesn't work like that. The Bifrost can only take people into the world that's opposite of the one it was summoned in; that's something I just remembered I forgot," the little girl said.

"Well, we're boned," Claude said.

"We can't give up without even trying!" Dimitri said. "Byleth, you summoned the Bifrost before, you should be able to do it again."

"I did?" Byleth asked.

"Who else could have done it?" Byleth shrugged her shoulders, but Dimitri did have a point. She was the one with the Persona, she was the one going in the Velvet Room, so it stood to reason that she was capable of summoning the Bifrost.

"How did I do that?"

"That's what we want to know," the little girl said. Therein lied the problem: Byleth had no idea what brought forth the Bifrost, and no matter how much she thought about it, nothing useful came to mind.

"Professor, is it possible that something you said triggered it?" Edelgard asked.

"What do you mean?" Byleth asked.

"Exactly what I said. It wasn't a lot, but you _were _talking just before we were sent to Yggdrasil, so it might be possible that something you said called the Bifrost forth."

"Come to think of it, it would make sense for it to be something like that," Dimitri said.

"Well, Byleth? What do you think the magic word is?" Claude asked.

She had no idea what it could have been, so she needed to think back to that moment the best she could to try and remember. She had just sent the bandit leader running after cutting off some of his fingers in her attempt to protect Edelgard. Edelgard thanked her, then Claude commented on her brutality, with her responding that she did what she had to do.

_No. What were my exact words? _Byleth asked herself. Remembering exactly what she said would be the key, so she did. Her exact words at that time were, "I'm always as brutal as I need to be." After that, she felt a tingling sensation before the four of them were sucked into the Bifrost. The tingling sensation had to be indicative of the trigger, but as she thought about it, the sensation didn't start at the end of her sentence, but somewhere in the middle. Going further, it started in the middle of a word, "Brutal". Yes, the first half of that was when the tingling sensation first got going, but it wasn't just there. There was another part where the sensation first started to form before coming at her in full force: when she said the word, "As".

"Asbru." It started with "As" and ended with "Bru—", so the trigger word had to be their combination, "Asbru."

"Asbru," Edelgard parroted.

"Is that the trigger word? But nothing's happen—" Before Dimitri could finish, a familiar bright light enveloped the five of them filled with familiar traces of blue, green, and purple.

After that, a familiarly giant rainbow shot down from the sky and swallowed them whole.

* * *

Once again, Byleth and her companions were treated to the sight of a massive, draconic tree floating in a field of ethereal blue. Once again, the Bifrost carried them towards the sphere on the bottom left that contained Alfheim. Once again, they all crash-landed into the dirt without receiving even a single bruise.

"We gotta work on our landings," Claude said.

"So we're really back in this world. It's just as bizarre as it was the first time around," Dimitri said.

"Let's go," Byleth said before proceeding to walk down the river.

"Yeah, before those Shadows notice we're here!" the little girl said as she floated above Byleth.

"At least wait for us!" Dimitri said.

"It's fine, isn't it? I mean, Byleth _is _going to be doing all the work.

"That's not true!"

"It's not?" Byleth asked. Dimitri let out a groan.

"Come on man, I know we all got our gear all spruced up for this, but it's more of a morale thing, isn't it?" Claude asked. "Weapons don't do anything to those Shadow things without a Persona, as Byleth has so cooly shown, and magic can stun them a bit, but it can't kill them. Same with your Crest, and I'm betting Edelgard would be the same."

"That's a good point," Edelgard said. "Both Dimitri's Crest of Blaiddyd and my Crest of Seiros can provide a momentary boost in physical strength, so if Dimitri couldn't kill a Shadow with his, the result would probably be the same for me. I don't wish to be dead weight for the Professor, but still…"

"It's fine," Byleth said. "You said you wanted to be here, so you have a right to be here, and you won't die. I wouldn't like it if you died." That was true for reasons she did understand and reasons she didn't understand.

As soon as she said that, a Shadow materialized in front of them.

"I told you we needed to get a move on!" the little girl said. "Well, I guess now you have a chance to put your money where your mouth is."

"Persona." Byleth drew her Crest in the air and summoned Freydis. At the same time, the Shadow exploded into a puddle of dark goo that reformed into a massive green blob with red eyes. The blob lunged at Freydis, but she jumped out of the way and slashed it in the back with her sword. It was a shallow hit, and the blob monster took advantage of that to jump on top of Freydis and knock her to the ground. Byleth felt a twinge of pain, but she ignored it as she summoned the cannon-like object to her hand and fired it at the blob monster. It recoiled from the pain and fell off of Freydis, allowing her to get in a deeper slash that cut it in two and made it vanish into nothing.

"That was an excellent fight, Byleth," Dimitri said.

"I'll say," Claude said. "You sure showed that thing who's boss, especially when you pulled out that weird little thing again."

"The Bang Bang Boomer," Byleth said.

"The what?" Claude asked after everyone was silent for several seconds.

"It goes, "Bang! Bang!" like a cannon, and it makes enemies go, "Boom!" Also like a cannon. It's the Bang Bang Boomer."

"I-Is that right?" Dimitri asked. She wouldn't have claimed the idea as her own otherwise, so she didn't understand what he was asking.

"I already knew about this, but it's still so—Oh my Goddess," the little girl said.

"Professor, I think what everyone is getting at is that calling that weapon the 'Bang Bang Boomer' isn't exactly the best way you could have proceeded," Edelgard said.

"Exactly!" Claude said.

"Yes, for something like this, I think the name 'The Doombringer' would be more appropriate."

"And we're back where we started!"

"My name is better," Byleth said.

"I'm not so sure about that," Edelgard said.

"Let's table this discussion and move on," Dimitri said.

"Yes, please!" the little girl said. Byleth thought that was a good idea, so she nodded her head and everyone headed down the river.

Her name was still a good one, though.

* * *

"Quick, hide!" After half an hour of walking, the little girl suddenly yelled that at them, so they all jumped behind a metal tree. Byleth didn't know why they were hiding, but then it made sense when she saw a shadow hovering a little off the ground and moving back and forth.

"This is because of yesterday, no doubt. Now that they know there can be intruders, they're going to have their rank and file keeping watch in different places to attack us," the little girl said.

"In that case, we should just strike now and get it over with," Edelgard said.

"Perhaps, or perhaps not. After all, there _is_ a much better way to fight Shadows than a full-frontal assault."

"Is this another thing you're only now remembering?" Dimitri asked.

"That's beside the point! Byleth, when that Shadow turns its back to us again, run up to it and hit it with your sword."

"It's not transformed," Byleth said.

"That's the point. Shadows can transform into their true forms at will, but the slightest damage from an outside force can force a transformation. If that happens, they'll be momentarily stunned, and you can use that time to attack them without worrying about them fighting back."

"Okay." The second the Shadow's back was turned, Byleth jumped out, ran up to it, and slashed it across the back. The Shadow exploded into dark goo and reformed into a dark-skinned girl dressed in white with pointed ears, a bone necklace, and a head of unkempt blue hair. Byleth summoned Freydis and had her slash at the girl; it was a clean hit, but her form remained. Blood dripped out of her torso, but a second later, she was bathed in a pale light and the injuries faded.

"It can heal itself? Just great," Claude said. Byleth didn't know what was great about it, but she still had Freydis attack the girl in white, either way. The girl in white dodged the attack with ease and fired a gust of wind at Byleth. Byleth countered with a fireball, and the clash of magics created a small burst of smoke. The second it cleared, the girl in white ran in, kicked Byleth in the face, and blew a raspberry at her.

Byleth snorted out a bit of blood before kicking the girl in white away and had Freydis blast her with a beam of light from her sword. The girl in white screamed before she fell to the ground with singed clothes, and Byleth took that chance to stab her in the chest and put her down for good.

"A little tougher than the last one, but you still managed to pull through. Nice work," the little girl said.

"Is it just me, or did that Shadow seem to have a rather strong reaction to Byleth's attack?" Dimitri asked.

"Hey, yeah! The same thing happened with those rat things from yesterday," Claude said. Edelgard glared at him, for some reason.

"She was weak to light," Byleth said.

"Yes, that must be it; some Shadows must be more susceptible to certain attacks than others," Edelgard said. "We can use that going forward, but we should also be cautious of it, Professor. If your little friend here is telling the truth about how Shadows and Personas are connected, then your Freydis is most likely weak to certain attacks, as well."

"I'll be careful."

"Well, even if you're not, we can work around that," the little girl said with a smile.

"What do you mean?"

"I'll tell you when you're in mortal peril, okay?"

"Okay." Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude seemed to question why that was okay, even though it was obviously okay because she had a plan for dealing with it.

Whether or not the plan could be put into action would end up being tested rather quickly as the group soon ran into another Shadow, the Shadow transforming into an armored knight wielding a large sword. Byleth had Freydis fire a beam of light at it, but the knight merely shrugged it off and charged at her; if Shadows could be weak to certain attacks, then Byleth supposed it made sense that they could also resist certain attacks.

Freydis and the knight locked swords, but Freydis was slowly being pushed back. Byleth launched a fireball at the knight that knocked it away, but it quickly recovered and slashed Freydis with a sword clad in darkness. Freydis was forced to the ground and Byleth felt a large surge of pain running through her body. Dark magic appeared to be Freydis' weakness, but she would have preferred to find out a different way.

"As would I, but this was the best way to sell the importance of what will happen next," the little girl said. The knight came down on Freydis with its sword; its speed, combined with how stunned Byleth felt, made it hard to imagine her being able to dodge it.

Then it stopped; it didn't stop the attack, it stopped moving entirely. Byleth could see her companions trying to run towards her, but they suddenly stopped, as well. Even the river had suddenly come to a standstill, a completely unnatural one.

"Everything's frozen," Byleth said.

"That's right. This is a special power of mine I recently discovered called the Divine Pulse. Pretty great, don't you think?" the little girl asked. Byleth nodded her head. "But wait, there's more. You can't move in frozen time, either, so simply unfreezing everything wouldn't help you. In that regard, the Divine Pulse isn't the most useful ability, or at least that would be the case if freezing time was the _only _thing it was capable of."

The little girl snapped her fingers, and everything started moving backward. Attacks were rescinded, positions were restored, even the pain Byleth was feeling faded away into nothing. The effect kept going until everything returned to when Freydis and the knight were locking swords. Once again, Byleth knocked it back with a fireball, but when it came at Freydis with a sword clad in darkness, Byleth had Freydis duck underneath and stab her sword through its torso. Byleth fired her Bang Bang Boomer at it thrice for good measure, and the knight dissolved into nothing, a sign of its defeat.

"You can turn back time," Byleth said.

"She can do what now?" Dimitri asked.

"It's just as she said. I am one who can bend the fabric of time to my whim… to a certain extent, anyway," the little girl said. "I can only turn back time a small amount a few times a day, and there's a bit of a lag between uses, but my Divine Pulse is still quite the power, don't you think?"

"Quite the power, indeed," Edelgard said.

"Man, between that, Byleth's Persona, and these Shadow things, there's just too much crazy stuff going on in the world to keep track of," Claude said. "Oh, the Draugr, too, but I guess they don't have anything to do with this."

"Except for the fact that they're created from Shadows," the little girl said.

Byleth looked around at the group. Everyone looked as confused as she felt.

"What did you just say?" Dimitri asked.

"Huh? Oh, right! That was the thing I was trying to remember yesterday, but I kept forgetting what it was. To think it would just slip out so naturally. What is going on with my head, right?"

"That's not what I want to hear! What do you mean that Draugr are born from Shadows?!"

"Right, right. Yggdrasil, you see, is a world that serves as a bridge between the souls of humanity and the souls of, well, the demonic, for lack of a better term. The two normally exist on separate planes of reality, and while it's not impossible for them to intersect, the average human soul can't handle the stress of something so at odds with itself forcing its way inside. In order to cope with that, the human soul forces the body to undergo a sort of metamorphosis into a form that can handle that abnormality, but the end result is something that's no longer human and never will be again. That's the truth behind the thing you call a Draugr."

"You've got to be kidding me. That's insane!" Claude said.

"It was obvious that the victims of the plague suffered as they transformed, but I can't even imagine how it must feel to have your very soul corrupted," Edelgard said.

"That's not important," Dimitri said.

"Not important? How can you—"

"The details of the process aren't what we need to mull over!" Dimitri turned back to the little girl. "That man in black—he had to have been sending these things out to corrupt someone. Are you not only telling me that Shadows are the ones who create Draugr, but the entire act is something being controlled by others?"

"Yes, that's right," the little girl said. Dimitri let out a laugh before slamming his fist against a metal tree.

"Are you kidding me?!" Dimitri then started punching the tree over and over again. "How dare they?! How could there be people who would be so sadistic?! How?!"

"Dimitri, calm down," Claude said. He tried to put a hand on his shoulder, but Dimitri swatted it away.

"I'm too angry, am I? Aren't you all too calm? We all heard the same insanity, so why am I the only one having any sort of reaction?"

"Hey, I'm with you on it being messed up, but what's flying off the handle and punching a tree going to do about it?"

"No one's saying that you can't feel hatred for the ones responsible, but you can't just get angry at the drop of a hat. You need to be able to choose the right time to be emotional," Edelgard said.

"Is that right? I barely know you, Claude, so I can't respond to you, but that answer is so typical of you, Edelgard. Of course someone who doesn't know the meaning of suffering would be able to give such an ideal rebuttal," Dimitri said.

"Watch your mouth, Dimitri." Edelgard's eyes seemed to darken as she spoke.

"Calm down," Byleth told everyone.

"Even you, Byleth? You've been silent through all of this. Why, though? What's your reason for not caring?" Dimitri asked.

"I don't know if I don't care, but I'm not angry because I wasn't there when your friends and family were killed by Draugr."

Everyone except the little girl started giving her a weird look. It was the truth, though. The Tragedy of Duscur was where the previous king of Faerghus and many of his associates were killed by Draugr. That was a fact, and she was just stating it.

"Fine, then. If we're all truly of different minds, then I'll be going at my own pace and kill these bastards all on my own!" Dimitri's body shone with the power of his Crest as he ran off, his increased strength giving him a burst of speed that made it impossible for anyone to grab him before he was well away from the group.

"Did I say something wrong?"

"I think we all might have, to a certain degree," Edelgard said.

"What? I didn't do anything!" Claude said.

"Yes, but don't you think that can be a problem, in and of itself?" Claude didn't look willing to respond to that. "No, now's not the time to fight. We need to go after Dimitri before he gets himself in trouble."

"Let's get to it, then!" the little girl said before flying off. Byleth, Edelgard, and Claude followed after her, and the entire time, Byleth didn't understand what she had done wrong.

* * *

It didn't take long for Byleth's group to find Dimitri, the area of his discovery being the same place they got to last time, and the circumstances were as poor as she had feared they might be. Dimitri was down on the ground looking worse for wear, and a gaggle of Shadows was surrounding him ready to pounce.

"Oh, his friends really are here." What was unaccounted for was the presence of a person who wasn't the man in black. The man who was talking while simultaneously digging his heel into Dimitri's face was a man with large, brown sideburns dressed like a thief who looked at them all with disdain. "Nice to meet you all. My name's Pallordo, the King of Thieves." He certainly didn't look like a king. "Before you ask, I like to introduce myself to people before I kill them."

"Get off of him," Byleth said.

"No can do, Missy," Pallordo said. He increased the pressure on Dimitri's head and forced a yell out of him.

"That wasn't a request, you know," Claude said as he drew his bow. "By the way, I prefer your old outfit."

"My old—oh, that? No, that was a different guy, and he's dead now. The higher-ups didn't like him letting you guys get away, so they killed him without skipping a beat."

"How unfortunate," Edelgard said with some sort of inflection.

"It really is! Thanks to that, they made me come over and keep watch of everything, but I'm not supposed to be doing that! I'm not meant for any of this high profile nonsense, yet here I am, so thanks for that!"

"You're welcome," Byleth said.

"Don't make fun of me!" She didn't get why he'd think that.

"Hey, if you don't want to do this, then just let our friend go and we'll pretend we never saw each other," the little girl said.

"No can do, kid. My orders are to guard what we've got at the end of this realm, and as much as I don't want to do that, I fear getting on my bosses' bad sides way too much to not do it." Pallordo's face then shifted from an exasperated frown to a wicked smile. "Plus, I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a thrill from having a chance to gut some noble brats in over their heads."

"Looks like we have our answer," Claude said, firing off an arrow towards Pallordo that was easily blocked by a Shadow.

"Hey, that could have killed me, you brat! I have better things to do than be killed in this Goddessforsaken world, you know! This is why I didn't want to be here! Being with these people is one thing, but I don't need to die for them! Kill them for me, already!"

The Shadows all broke apart and reformed into new appearances. One turned into a woman with braided pigtails and a pot of fire on her head; another turned into a being with a muscular, metallic body, horse legs for limbs, and two horse heads in place of where a head normally would have gone; four Shadows merged together to create a large figure that looked to be a man wearing the flesh of a bull as clothing, the flesh of the bull's head being stretched so close to the man's head that his skull was poking through.

"N-No!" The remaining Shadows turned into three of the metal rats from the day before, and just as she did then, Edelgard dropped her axe and hid behind a tree.

"I didn't expect you to help, but still! Come on!" the little girl said.

"Persona," Byleth said, summoning Freydis. The two of them charged at the rats, but the man bull jumped in and pounded the ground so hard that the resulting shockwave knocked them back. The horse man shot a large block of ice at Byleth, but Byleth melted it with a fireball. At the same time, Freydis fired a beam of light at the flaming woman, but she dodged and left herself open to being shot in the leg by one of the rats. Both Byleth and Freydis stumbled to the ground, allowing the man bull to charge at them and knock them to the ground with a lariat to each of their throats.

Byleth wished that hadn't happened.

"Byleth!" Dimitri called out, which led to Pallordo applying more force to his head.

"Damn you!" Claude said. He fired off another arrow at Pallordo, but the flaming woman burned it to ash and the horse man hit Claude in the chest with its ice, the force of the attack knocking—and freezing—him to the ground. Byleth tried to launch a fireball at Claude to free him, but one of the rats tackled her back to the ground before she got the chance.

"You know what? I think I was wrong to stress out over you guys," Pallordo said. "The only Persona user among you is a complete novice, and all she has for hangers-on are some weird kid, a Duke's brat who's worth starts and ends at his name, a prince who's too angry to make a difference anywhere, and a weak little princess who likes to act tough, but the second she falls, she falls _hard_."

"They're doing it again," Edelgard said. "Why are they doing it again? I'm doing everything I'm supposed to be doing, yet they won't stop showing up? This isn't fair. It's not fair."

"See?! This is great! Kills without any hassle are the best, so you all truly have my gratitude!" Pallordo let out a laugh as Dimitri stayed under his foot, Claude remained trapped in ice, and Edelgard kept shaking.

Byleth didn't enjoy any of that.

"Come on, Edelgard, pull yourself together!" the little girl said as she tried to break the ice covering Claude with a rock. "I still can't use my powers right now, so we all have to do what we can to be strong for Byleth!"

"Run away," Byleth said. It was a natural conclusion to arrive at, yet everyone looked at her strangely.

"What?" Edelgard asked, breaking a little out of her state.

"Run away. Use the Bifrost to return to Garreg Mach. I'll stay and finish things here."

"But that's—Why wouldn't you come with us?!"

"If I can't win now, then I'd never be able to win. I can still stand, so I can still fight."

"Works for me," Pallordo said. The man bull charged at Byleth once more. Freydis fired a beam of light at it, but the horse man intercepted it with its body without issue, freeing the man bull to tackle Byleth back to the ground.

"That's right. I need to free Dimitri before you can all go."

"Stop telling us to do that!" Claude said.

"Yeah! What do you think happens to me in this scenario?!" the little girl asked.

"I don't know, but at the very least, I don't want them to die." Byleth's motivations then were the same as they were the previous day: for whatever reason, above all else, she didn't want those three to die. She didn't know why that was, but either way, that was all there was to it. It was some kind of feeling, but she wasn't good with those, so she certainly wouldn't be able to put a name to it.

"How intoxicatingly heroic. Well, help her out, you guys." Pallordo wouldn't give her the time to contemplate, either. The flaming woman launched fireballs that Byleth and Freydis managed to dodge, but Freydis was hit in the arm by ice from the horse man. Byleth felt a chill run through her as the rats tackled her back to the ground, and she felt a new surge of pain as the man bull kicked Freydis into a tree. None of it was anything she couldn't handle so long as she got a second to catch her breath, but as the rats started to move their teeth towards her face, she started to feel like she wouldn't get the time she needed.

She felt that way right up until Edelgard lodged her axe into one of their skulls.

"Hey, hey, what the hell is this? Aren't these things supposed to scare the crap outta you?" Pallordo asked.

"That hasn't stopped in the slightest; just looking at these things makes want to vomit everything I've eaten in the past month," Edelgard said. Her hands were still shaking as she spoke, but when she looked down at Byleth, the shaking seemed to die down. "But so what? This woman can so easily put her life on the line again and again like this, yet I lose my resolve at the sight of a mere rodent. How pathetic. It's truly pathetic, but no more!" Edelgard stomped down on her axe handle, causing it to tear right through the rat's head and split it in two, causing the other two to back away from her. "I can't afford to die now, not until my dreams are realized, but if I allow myself to be so weak that a rat can break me, then those dreams were never worth having, and that's the farthest from the truth!"

"Wait, is it dead? Are you really—" Pallordo was cut off by Dimitri throwing him off of his head and making him fall flat on his face.

"You're not the only one who hates this, you know, and you're sure as hell not the only one who wants to fight!" Dimitri said. "I rushed into things and got us all in trouble, sure, but my feelings haven't changed—no, they have, but it's more as if they've been refined." Dimitri grabbed his spear and pointed it at Pallordo. "I want to destroy this man and his ilk, that hasn't changed, but above all else, I refuse to keep watching people die while being powerless to stop it!" At that time, the man bull grabbed Dimitri and started squeezing him, but Dimitri stabbed him in the foot, forcing him to let him go and allowing him to run to Byleth's side.

"No way! Are you also—"

"Don't forget about me, now!" Claude said as he took the little girl's rock from her. "You really told me to run? That's fine. I've had to do a lot of running to get to where I am today, so I'm used to it by now. But just because I'm used to it doesn't mean that I like it. So telling me to run while someone else takes all the hits I didn't have it in me to take? Like hell I can justify that!" Claude smashed the rock against the ice and shattered it in one blow. He then jumped up on his feet and quickly fired an arrow at the horse man, and when it tried to swat it away, the arrow went straight through its arm.

"Come on! All three of them?!" Pallordo shouted as he stood back up.

"Well? Is he right?" the little girl asked.

"Let's find out," Dimitri said. As Byleth stood up behind them, the three of them ran their fingers through the air until a pale green image of their Crests appeared in front of each of them, the same as what Byleth did to summon Freydis. It was obvious what was coming next.

""Persona!"" The three of them were unified as they slammed their hands against the images of their Crests. A pillar of green fire appeared behind each of them, and out from the fire emerged their Personas.

Behind Edelgard was a woman with the head of a cat with eyes as brown as its fur, a figure clad in red armor with golden hearts attached to the legs and chest, a black spear and a bushy tail, each with a tip that was bent to look like a heart, and a pair of giant black eagle wings floating behind her head while pointing down toward the ground.

Behind Dimitri was a man whose entire face was obscured by a boar's head, save for a bushy blonde beard. His torso was bare and covered in scars, his hands were grasped tightly around a chipped zweihander, his legs were armored with silver plating, and tied around his waist was the mane of a blue lion.

Behind Claude was an archer whose body was obscured by a green coat, save for a pair of dark, muscular arms holding a bow made of golden light. The archer sat atop a large horse with a skeletal head, and the only thing that poked through the hood of the coat was a pair of golden deer antlers.

"Seriously?! All three of them?! Like hell I'm sticking around for this!" Pallordo jumped across the river and started fleeing the scene. Byleth would have liked to go after him, but she knew that the fight here was the more important one.

"Strike them down, Brynhildr!" Edelgard said; her Persona charged forward with her spear and hit the horse man with enough force to knock it into the ground and leave a small crater.

"End this battle, Gunnar!" Dimitri said; his Persona jumped up and swung his sword onto the flaming woman, failing to kill her, but succeeding in chopping off an arm.

"Let's dance, Orvar-Oddr!" Claude said; his Persona ran over to the rats and swatted them away with his bow before they had a chance to react.

Byleth didn't have anything clever to say, so she just jumped at the man bull and stabbed it in the head. It reached up to try and grab her, but when Byleth threw a fireball at its hand, it was completely unfazed and proceeded to wrap its hand around her neck. Immediately after, its movements were thrown into reverse, a clear sign that the little girl was able to use—and had used—her Divine Pulse again. The second time around, Byleth had Freydis simply stab the man bull's hand before dislodging herself from him; at the same time, her Crest activated and healed some of her injuries.

"Yeah, now this is more—look out!" The little girl's cry brought Byleth's attention to the horse man firing a block of ice at her. Byleth was ready to counter it, but before she could, the ice shattered and the horse man fell back.

"Sorry to steal your thunder there, but when you got a shot, you gotta take it," Claude said. To Byleth's surprise, in his hands was what looked like her Bang Bang Boomer, but it was much longer and looked like it could be slung over his shoulders. At the same time, Dimitri summoned his own Bang Bang Boomer and shot the man bull with it; his was also elongated, and if Byleth was looking at it right, there appeared to be two points of exit for the tiny cannonballs.

"Edelgard, behind you!" Dimitri said. One of the rats had gotten behind Edelgard while Gunnar did battle with the other one. The rat pointed its cannon-like weapon at her, ready to attack, but without words, Edelgard summoned forth a Bang Bang Boomer far larger than all of theirs combined and jammed it so hard into its head that it was pushed into the dirt.

"Mine is bigger than yours," Edelgard said. She pressed down on the metal bit and fired onto the rat, the attack tearing through its skull with ease and causing it to be reduced to nothing.

"Let's end this," Byleth said.

"Right!" Dimitri said. Gunnar took a hand away from his sword and shot a stream of water at the flaming woman, dousing her flames and forcing her to the ground. "Claude!" For some reason, Dimitri high-fived him.

"Let's go!" Claude said. Orvar-Oddr drew his bow, summoned forth an ethereal arrow, and fired it at the horse man. It was a direct hit against its chest that left it riddled with cracks as it fell to the ground. "Edelgard!" For some reason, Claude high-fived her.

"Ravage them!" Edelgard said. A ball of fire formed where Brynhildr's mouth would normally be that was immediately launched at the last remaining rat, knocking it back and melting away some of its armor. "Professor!" For some reason, Edelgard high-fived her, and for some reason, she didn't hate it. It even felt like it was supposed to happen.

"Freydis," Byleth said. Freydis flew at the man bull, dodged underneath a powerful punch before it could hit her, and blasted it in the jaw with a beam of light that broke some of the bull flesh around its head before forcing it to the ground.

"Now, you guys! Hit them with everything you've got!" the little girl said. All at once, the four of them charged at the fallen Shadows with their weapons, assaulting them with rapid timing and precision. No one wasted a move, no one missed their mark, everyone managed to hit someone with something until they were all destroyed.

At long last, the battle was over.

"We did it! We actually did it!" Claude shouted as everyone recalled their Personas.

"Yes, we certainly did. Though I must say, as happy as I am for it, I didn't expect all of us to gain Personas like the Professor did," Edelgard said.

"I definitely did, and even if it wasn't all of us at once, we all would have gotten them eventually. That's how these kinds of stories go, after all."

"This is reality," Byleth said. Claude just shrugged his shoulders.

"Everyone, please allow me to apologize for how I acted before! I allowed my anger to get the better of me, and because of that, you all ended up in dire straits. Please forgive my foolishness!" Dimitri said, bowing his head low to the ground.

"It's fine. Apparently, I could have been nicer, so sorry for that," Byleth said.

"Plus, it's not like something like this wouldn't have happened anyway, so forget about it," Claude said.

"As I said before, there's no harm in being angry with people, you just need to understand that there's no merit in being angry all the time," Edelgard said. "If there are people you hate so much that you want them to die, you need to contain yourself until you're able to fight them, and only then should you unleash all of your rage."

"I, well, I don't know about all of that, but you're right about controlling myself. I need to save my feelings for the ones responsible for the plague, not some random foliage, and certainly not any of you."

"Apology happily accepted," the little girl said. "We had a bit of a rough start, but I must say, this is one good looking team we've got here. You've even got your own little maneuver, despite working together for only two seconds."

"The high-fives," Byleth said, looking down at her hand. Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude were all doing the same thing.

"Yeah, what was up with that, anyway?"

"If I'm being honest, I'm not sure. All of a sudden, I just felt like it was something I needed to do," Dimitri said.

"Same here. It was like I was moving on instinct, and at the same time, it felt kind of familiar. Like I'd done it before. Is that weird?" Claude asked.

"I don't think so. I got the same feeling as well. What about you, Professor?" Edelgard asked. Byleth nodded her head. It was hardly the first time those three invoked a sense of nostalgia, after all.

"Well, I believe we should put a pin in this for now and move onto a more pressing matter."

"Like what?" Byleth asked. Edelgard reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper that was quickly unfolded.

"We need to decide on a team name."

"We do?" Dimitri asked.

"Of course. If we're all going to be working together, then having a collective name for ourselves can emphasize our unity and improve our teamwork. There are many studies to support this," Edelgard said.

"When did you even make that list?" Claude asked.

"I was up all night writing it."

"Why?" Byleth also wanted an answer to that.

"Look, I'll just read what I have and you can all say something when you hear something you like, okay?" It was likely that Edelgard would do that regardless of whether or not they opposed it. "This is what I have: the Persona Strike Force; the Masked Circle; the New World Order; the Specialized Nobility Execution Squad, or 'S.N.E.S.' for short; the Investigation Team; the Phantom Strikers; the Shadow Knights; the Garreg Mach Four; Byleth Eisner and the Garreg Mach Three—"

"You can't be serious," Dimitri said.

"Okay, what about the Garreg Mach Two?" Byleth didn't think Dimitri liked that one, either.

"Hey, isn't the math wrong on all of those? I'm not included in the tally!" the little girl said.

"Hm? Oh. I guess I forgot to include you because you don't have a Persona."

"You didn't have one when you came up with these!"

"Do you have an idea?" Byleth asked.

"Are-Are mine no good?" Edelgard asked.

"Everyone should have a turn." Edelgard eventually conceded to that.

"Do I have an idea? Of course, I have an idea," the little girl said. "There's no way I wouldn't have an idea. If Edelgard can spend all night coming up with ideas, then I can spend a few seconds coming up with them. That's the kind of girl I probably am."

"You're stalling."

"Stalling? Me? Please. This isn't stalling. By the time I'm done here, you'll all wish I was—wait, it just hit me. The perfect name for our team is the Nibelungs!"

"The Nibelungs?" Edelgard asked.

"What's a Nibelung?" Dimitri asked.

"It's a name given to a hero of ancient times, that's what it is," the little girl said.

"How do you know that? I've never heard of this, so how do you know about it?" Claude asked.

"I don't know! It's a real thing though, I swear!"

"I like it. Let's use this one," Byleth said.

"Really?" Edelgard asked.

"It's nice, and this way, everyone gets to add something."

"I suppose that's fair."

"I have no complaints," Dimitri said.

"Me, neither!" Claude said.

"Yes! My thing wins!" the little girl cheered.

"I also had the idea of us adopting monikers to use," Edelgard said. "The Professor can stay as Professor, I can be Ember, Dimitri can be—"

"I don't want to do that," Byleth cut in. Edelgard looked at her for a second before tearing up the page and scattering the pieces around.

"Don't do _that_! Littering is not allowed here, probably!" the little girl said.

"I mean, if you don't even know for sure, how bad is it?" Claude asked.

"He's not wrong," Dimitri said. There was more back and forth like that that Byleth didn't participate in, and she was fine with that. The main point was that they were a team, they were the Nibelungs, and they were in this together. When Igor told her that new Persona users would emerge around her, she thought that it might be those three, and if she couldn't help but feel happy that it ended up playing out that way.

* * *

**I am thou, thou art I. Thou hast acquired a new vow. It shall use the turmoils of the past to gather strength in the present for moving forward into the future. Such is the gift the Fool Arcana bestows upon thee.**

**Byleth Eisner** _**has established the Fool Confidant with **_**the Nibelungs**_**. **_**Byleth** _**will receive an Arcana Burst when fusing Personas of the Fool Arcana.**_

* * *

Byleth didn't know what that was, and she didn't understand any of it.

* * *

**Guns in this chapter:**

**Edelgard: Anti-tank rifle**

**Dimitri: Double barrel shotgun**

**Claude: Carbine**

****By the way, Orvar-Oddr's spells are Force/Zan- skills. In the _Shin Megami Tensei _franchise, Force is used interchangeably with Wind, but I decided to give it a more unique appearance.****


	5. A Romp in the Woods, Part 1

"I think it's made from sheep."

"Byleth, the material isn't the question here."

"That doesn't mean it can't be."

"I mean, that's not _un_true, but figuring out why it exists seems more important." Context is likely needed for what is transpiring. After formally establishing themselves as the Nibelungs, something that came with an odd sort of something else that Byleth didn't know what to make of, Byleth and the rest of the group crossed the river to keep investigating Alfheim and chase after Pallordo to see what he knew. Byleth was in the middle of putting her gun back into the weird invisible space it sat in whenever she wasn't using, and as she did that, she felt something weird in there. Upon pulling the weird thing out, Byleth discovered that it was a small pouch made of an unknown material covered in strange symbols and tied shut with a blue string. The same kind of blue as the Velvet Room.

"That makes sense," Byleth said.

"What makes sense?" Edelgard asked. Byleth pointed at the string.

"What does that mean, though?" Claude asked. Byleth simply shrugged her shoulders, though she wasn't completely sure why.

"Can we just open it up and see what's inside, already?" the little girl asked. "That's the fastest way to figure it out, right?"

"I agree, but let's be careful. For all we know, it could be a trap placed by Pallordo when we weren't looking," Dimitri said. Byleth nodded her head and undid the blue velvet string around the pouch. Looking inside, Byleth was initially greeted with nothing but darkness, but she quickly caught sight of something with a bit of sparkle. She turned the pouch upside-down, hit the bottom of it, and out came a gold coin.

Then another.

And another.

And another.

And even more so until a pile of gold was spilling out of the tiny pouch. That by itself would have been something, but in addition to the gold, the pouch released a seemingly random assortment of items such as rocks, sticks, and oddly shaped pieces of metal.

"It sure fits a lot," Byleth said once the pouch finally emptied itself.

"That shouldn't be the main takeaway here!" Claude said. "I mean, yeah, it's crazy that something that small could hold all that gold, but where did the gold even come from?"

"It's not mine."

"Who cares? We're rich! Rich!" the little girl said while running her hands through the gold. "Wait, I can't even use this for anything, so why am I so excited about it?"

"Don't know." Byleth started scooping all the gold and items back into the pouch.

"If the Professor didn't bring the gold with her, then it had to have been acquired either in this visit to Alfheim or our previous one," Edelgard said.

"How, though? We've been with her the whole time, and all Byleth's done is fight Shadows. That can't have anything to do with it," Dimitri said.

"Unless it does," Claude said with relative ease.

"What, then? Byleth kills Shadows, then she's somehow rewarded for it with gold and random trinkets?"

"Yeah, maybe. I mean, why not? Not like we've done anything else since we got here."

"That doesn't make sense, though."

"Says the guy who summons a magic man with a boar mask out of thin air." Dimitri's posture fell into a slump.

"Why did it have to be a boar, of all things? He's going to give me so much grief over that, I just know it." Byleth had no idea who he was talking about.

"Maybe it's not that some unseen force gives us gold for defeating Shadows, but the Shadows, themselves?" Edelgard asked. "If we assume that the gold is given to us after they're defeated, it could be that they, themselves, possess the gold and simply leave it behind after their demise."

"If that's how it works, then I got a great idea for increasing our profit margins," the little girl said. "Whenever we fight a Shadow, all we need to do is weaken them to the point that one more hit will do them in, and then we shake them down for all they got!"

"That's just—Would something like that even be necessary? We already get gold from beating them."

"For all we know, they only leave behind the scraps. This way ensures that we're getting everything they've got, and who wouldn't like that?" There was a glint in her eyes that Byleth didn't quite know what to make of.

"I like the way you think, kid," Claude said with a smile.

"I don't know. Even if they're some sort of demonic beings, robbing them feels a little wrong, doesn't it?" Dimitri asked.

"No one asked for a wet blanket over here!" the little girl said.

"That's not what this is."

"If it'll make you feel better, don't think of it as petty theft, think of it as more like these guys helping us fund our war effort. How about that? Can you live with that?" Claude asked. Dimitri just let out a sigh; Byleth didn't know if that was an answer, but as she stored her pouch away, she saw that there were more pressing matters at hand.

"Shadow," Byleth said. Everyone turned ahead and caught sight of a Shadow flying at them.

"A little warning would have been nice!" Claude said.

"That was a little warning."

"Not what I meant, but let's just get ready!" Everyone drew their Crests in the air and summoned their respective Personas. The Shadow, meanwhile, exploded into dark goo and reshaped itself into the form of a tiny woman with a blue outfit and insectoid wings.

It fluttered about for a few seconds before Byleth shot it with her Bang Bang Boomer and sent it crashing to the ground with a hole in one of its wings.

"If you were just going to do that, why'd you even summon your Persona?" the little girl asked.

"Everyone else was doing it," Byleth said. It was the truth, but the little girl still rolled her eyes. Moving on, Byleth and her companions surrounded the winged woman with their weapons to make sure that there was no chance it could run away.

"No, please! Please don't kill me, I beg you!" Surprisingly, it was the winged woman who said that.

"Did—Did that thing just talk?!" Dimitri asked.

"I suppose it makes sense," Edelgard said. "Personas and Shadows are supposed to be two sides of the same coin, and the Professor's Freydis spoke when it first appeared. I guess we just killed the other ones before they had a chance to speak."

"Sure does raise a lot of questions, but they're not important right now," Claude said. "You, Shadow lady. You said you want to live, right? Fork over all your gold, and we just might turn a blind eye here."

"Oh, um, I would, but I actually left my money in my other leotard. Sorry."

"What's a leotard? Is that what your outfit is called? That's kind of—I'm getting off track. What do we do now?"

"I guess we just kill her if we're done with her," the little girl said, shrugging her shoulders. They would have killed her anyway, so at least they weren't being set back.

"No, please! I'm sorry I tried to attack you, I won't do it again! Please don't kill me, I'm begging you!" the winged woman cried.

"Don't think you can beg for mercy now," Dimitri said. "It's time for you to—"

"Okay," Byleth interjected. Everyone, even the winged woman, looked at her weird for whatever reason.

"You want us to let her go, Professor? Why bother?" Edelgard asked.

"She said she's sorry. You are sorry, right?"

"Yes, yes! I'm so super duper sorry! I'll never bother you again, I promise!" the winged woman said.

"Then that's that. If you're sorry, then we won't hurt you." Everyone looked like they had something to say, but before they could, the winged woman jumped up off the ground and hugged Byleth's face. Byleth immediately pulled her off of her face and said, "Personal space."

"I'm sorry, I'm just so happy! Thank you, thank you, thank you! You don't know how relieved I feel right now! This is the happiest I've felt in all my years of being, of being—" The winged woman trailed off for a second before her wing instantly healed itself and she started floating in the air in front of Byleth. "That's right, I can't believe I forgot. I'm not just a denizen of this realm, I am one who drifts through the collective unconscious of man. Yes, that's who I am, that's who Pixie is, and from now on, I'll be drifting inside your heart!"

Byleth had no idea what that meant, but before she could get an answer, the winged woman—or Pixie, rather—was bathed in a green light as it transformed into a golden apple that flew at Byleth. She caught it in one hand, and as if she were being compelled to do so by something beyond her, she took a bite of the apple.

"What are you doing?! You can't just eat whatever random thing you find, especially if it was just an otherworldly being a second ago!" the little girl said.

"It's tart," Byleth said. The apple vanished in a burst of green light, and with it, Byleth felt like something new had entered her; not physically, but somehow, in some way, spiritually. It swelled around inside of her beyond her stomach, and before she knew it, Byleth was drawing her Crest once more, and when she slammed her hand against it, a single word left her lips: "Pixie."

Freydis was engulfed in a pillar of green fire, and when it vanished, out came the familiar form of Pixie.

"Oh my Goddess, what is this?" Dimitri asked.

"Her name is Pixie."

"No, I mean why do you have it? What happened to Freydis?"

"Nothing." Byleth drew her Crest once more, and a pillar of green fire exchanged Pixie for Freydis. "See?" Byleth repeated the process and brought Pixie out, once more.

"Yeah, we see, but how is this something we can even see?" Claude asked. "I mean, has it always been possible to have multiple Personas? And what was she saying with that stuff about remembering who she really is?" Byleth immediately turned to the little girl.

"Hey, don't look at me. I don't have the answers to every—Wait, I just got it," the little girl said. "Okay, so Shadows not remembering who they are. You know all that blue stuff that the World Tree is floating around in? It has a lot of different names like the collective unconscious, the Sea of Souls, the Kadath Mandala, but whatever you want to call it, it's where all past and present records of existence are recorded. Most of the time, all the records just float about aimlessly and don't bother anyone, but every now and then, they end up getting separated from the collective unconscious and wind up in one of the realms of Yggdrasil. When that happens, the Sphere of Influence of the realm corrupts them and forces them to take on a form more appropriate for their new home. In short, that's how we end up with Shadows."

"So you're saying that these things are copies of people and creatures that all existed at one point?" Dimitri asked. "I'm not sure if I fully understand, but the part about them being copies. It would more than explain why we've fought multiple versions of the same Shadows."

"So when the Professor made Pixie remember who she really was, in a way, she was purifying her and getting rid of this world's crazy brainwashing. How intriguing," Edelgard said, to which Byleth merely shrugged. "What about the other question? Is it truly possible to use multiple Personas?"

"Maybe? I'm still kind of fuzzy on that one, but people can wear more than one mask, so I guess it'd make sense for you all to be able to use more than one Persona," the little girl said. Her body floated off of the ground a little as she let out a small hum.

"What's wrong?" Byleth asked.

"Nothing, it's just—That whole thing where you made that Shadow remember who she was just by talking with her. When you think about it, that's kind of similar to what's been going on with me, isn't it? I don't know how to feel about that."

"Neither do I," Edelgard said. Before anyone could inquire further, another Shadow appeared before them, that one exploding into two of the floating pumpkins Byleth fought the previous day. Everyone summoned their Personas and charged into battle. The pumpkins shot fireballs while shouting, "Hee-Ho!", but Dimitri used Gunnar's water to extinguish them. Byleth took advantage of the opening and had Pixie launch a bolt of thunder at one pumpkin, and as it recoiled in pain, Edelgard charged in and cut it in two, its cleaved halves quickly dissolving into nothing. Meanwhile, Orvar-Oddr hit the other one with his ethereal arrow, after which Gunnar doused it with water. The flame inside the pumpkin's lantern went out and it fell to the ground a soggy mess.

"Okay, my turn!" Claude said. "Not gonna lie, I've liked this guy since we saw him yesterday, so if anyone's getting him on their team, it's me!"

"This isn't a game, Claude. Tell him, Byleth," Dimitri said.

"I think it's cute, too," Byleth said. Dimitri said nothing else as Claude stepped close to the pumpkin.

"Oh, no-ho. Are you gonna finish me-hee-ho off, mister?" the pumpkin asked.

"What? No, of course not," Claude said. "Honestly, I'm sorry we had to hurt you and your buddy at all, but that's the way it is sometimes. It's a doggy dog world out there, you know?"

"Haha, that's funny! I've never heard that one before-ho!"

"Oh, so you like jokes, do you? I got one that'll really knock your socks off. It goes like—" The pumpkin interrupted him with laughter.

"Knock my socks off, what? I don't even _wear _socks! That's too much, man!"

"That wasn't the joke," the pumpkin's lantern lit up again and it floated into the air completely dry, "but okay, then."

"I got it all worked out-ho. My true self is one of the Jack Bros, Pyro Jack! Let's keep having fun together, hee-ho!" Just like with Pixie, Pyro Jack was bathed in a green light as it transformed into a golden apple.

Also just like with Pixie, the apple flew into Byleth's hands, even though Claude was the only one reaching out for it.

"Huh," was all Byleth said in response to that.

"Okay, that was weird," Claude said. "Byleth, just stay there and don't move a muscle. I know it must be tempting, but no matter what, you cannot eat that apple."

"Don't talk to her like she's some kind of animal!" Edelgard said. Byleth immediately took a bite out of the apple. "You were still out of line, Claude, that hasn't changed."

"Yeah, fine, whatever, but Byleth! Why did you do that?"

"Instinct?" Blyeth asked with a shrug as the apple vanished in a burst of green light. The same feeling that appeared with Pixie appeared once more, and Byleth answered it by drawing her Crest and saying, "Pyro Jack." As expected, a green pillar of fire replaced Pixie with the familiar form of Pyro Jack. "Can no one else do this?"

"No, it's just you! Not cool, Byleth! Not cool! That was supposed to be _my _little buddy! Why'd you have to go and take him from me? Were you just that hungry?"

"I could still eat, but it was instinct." Claude looked nearly ready to fall over; someone needed to do something about his posture.

"You know, as crazy as it might sound, I don't think Byleth did that to try and fill that bottomless pit she calls a stomach," the little girl said. "Both now and with Pixie, there was a strange gleam in her eye when the apple appeared, almost as if some force was compelling her to react to it. Plus, since Byleth already knew that these apples taste tart, if she had control of herself, she wouldn't dare eat another one without pairing it with something to make it more edible."

"It's true, I wouldn't," Byleth said while nodding her head.

"Why is _that _the part you choose to acknowledge?" Dimitri said, to which Byleth simply shrugged her shoulders.

"The point is, if none of you felt anything like that, then it must mean that Byleth's the only one who can use multiple Personas," the little girl said.

"Is that so? That's certainly interesting," Edelgard said.

"Says you!" Claude said. "I put in all the work for winning that little guy over, so I should be able to use him! How come Byleth's the only one who gets to?" It was a good question, one that made Byleth remember something Igor and Adam had told her yesterday. Something about a power that she and she, alone, managed to possess that was supposed to help her on her journey.

"I'm a Wild Card," Byleth stated. Everyone turned to her with looks she couldn't process very well.

"A Wild Card? What does that mean?" Edelgard asked.

"I don't know, but that's what I am."

"And you know this because why, exactly?" Dimitri asked.

"There was a man with a big nose and he…" Byleth trailed off as she stressed to remember the finer details of it all.

"Look, I say we drop it. If I'm being honest, I didn't feel like being able to use multiple Personas was anything to be excited about in the first place. I'm sure the Professor will be fine, but it comes off as something that'll be more trouble than it's worth," Edelgard said. "However, if it will help the Professor, then I believe we should do what we can to assist her."

"Good thinking. After all, if we try and leave all the talking to this one, it'll probably take a miracle and a half to have any sort of long-running success," the little girl said.

"Yeah, that's probably true. Okay, if it's like that, then I don't mind sticking with Orvar-Oddr," Claude said. His posture seemed to improve, all of a sudden.

Also very sudden was the appearance of two more Shadows. One gained the appearance of a purple-skinned woman floating in the air with avian wings while wearing a strapless yellow dress while the other exploded into four of the metal rats that they had fought multiple times over.

"I'd appreciate it if you left those vermin to me," Edelgard said. Before anyone could say anything, Edelgard had summoned her Bang Bang Boomer and fired at one of the rats, killing it in an instant and making the other three run off in a panic, Edelgard immediately giving chase. She seemed to have a handle on things, so Byleth decided to leave her alone and focus on the winged woman, who was currently in the middle of firing ethereal feathers at Dimitri and Claude that they were barely dodging.

"Little help here!" Claude said. Byleth nodded to Pyro Jack and it launched a fireball at the winged woman, interrupting its assault and allowing for Orvar-Oddr to fire an attack at it, an attack that more or less harmlessly bounced off of it. "Yeah, that figures." The winged woman then opened her mouth and fired off a flurry of needles in their way. Dimitri winced in pain as Gunnar was struck by the attack, but then his body started to glow with the activation of his Crest, a glow that was passed into Gunnar, and his Persona was able to parry the attack with a single strike. From there, the winged woman readied her ethereal arrows once more.

"Too slow!" Dimitri said. Still glowing with the power of his Crest, Dimitri leaped into the air and slashed at the enemy's wings with his lance, his strength enough to tear one clean off, and as it tried its best to stay afloat, he summoned his Bang Bang Boomer and hit her in the forehead with the back end of it to send her crashing down to the ground.

"Well, looks like one of us likes to play a little rough," Claude said with a small whistle.

"Sorry. I got carried away," Dimitri said as his Crest deactivated.

"You defeated the enemy. The way you did it shouldn't matter," Byleth said. It was the truth of the matter, but Dimitri looked as if he had other thoughts on the subject.

"P-Please, d-don't hurt me. I'll be good, I promise." The statement came from the winged woman, barely clinging to what remained of her life.

"Your turn, Dimitri."

"Wait, what? Why do I have to talk to her?" Dimitri said.

"It's your turn."

"Since when are we on a turn system?" Byleth wasn't aware that they weren't on a turn system, so she didn't know how to respond to that. Regardless, Dimitri let out a sigh and stepped over to the winged woman.

"You're ready to finish me off, aren't you? Can't say I don't deserve it," the winged woman said.

"No, that's not what I want to do," Dimitri said. "Honestly, I'm sorry that I had to hurt you at all. We're all victims of whatever cruel game Pallordo and his ilk are playing, so we should try and come together against them."

"My, how noble of you. Guess I should expect a handsome man like you to have such a kind heart." The winged woman giggled and Dimitri's face went a little red. If he was feeling sick, then he should have told them about it before they went to the World Tree.

"Yes, well, thank you for the compliment, I suppose."

"Oh, come on, don't go on shy on me now. Then again, it does add a little charm to your character. I think I can get behind the whole 'shy guy' routine if you'll let me." The winged woman batted her eyes at Dimitri, and for some reason, he kept backing away from her until he bumped into a nearby tree.

"Dimitri, if you don't want to have sex with her, just tell her that," Byleth said. The little girl started laughing for whatever reason, and for some reason, Claude joined her.

"None of you are helping, at all!" Dimitri shouted.

"Oh, I love a man who can make people laugh," the winged woman said. "Wait, I do? I do, that's right!" All injuries on the winged woman's body vanished without a trace and she went into the air, once more. "Yes, my true name is Nemhain, and now I am yours! Call me next time you wanna get really crazy, big boy." Nemhain was bathed in a green light before turning into a golden apple that, like the others, flew into Byleth's hand and had a bite taken out of it before vanishing, signifying that she now had control over Nemhain.

"I'm never doing this again," Dimitri said.

"What? Is His Royal Highness that afraid of a little flirting? How do you expect to continue the bloodline like this?" Claude asked. He was still laughing a good deal, but he stopped when Dimitri kicked a tree hard enough to knock a chunk of metal off of it.

"Okay, I think we took this far enough, let's see how Edelgard is doing," the little girl said. Byleth turned her head to the left and caught sight of Edelgard digging her heel into one of the metal rats while Brynhildr had her spear skewering another one and was burning the third one with a fireball.

"She seems okay," Byleth said.

"That feels rather subjective."

"So, have you bastards had enough? Is this the end of you trying to get a rise out of me?" Edelgard asked as Brynhildr's victims disintegrated.

"Hey, what's your problem, lady? I didn't do anything to deserve this, and you know it!" said the metal rat under her heel.

"You exist as what you are. That's more than enough reason for why you deserve all of this and more." Edelgard pressed down harder on the rat and it started screaming. Her expression didn't change in the slightest through any of it, though for whatever reason, she stopped when she noticed Byleth and the others approaching her.

"Hey, what gives? I didn't say stop. Keep it going, girl!"

"I will kill you right here and now!" The metal rat let out another scream, one that was decidedly not of arousal, before pleading for his life once more. After a bit of that, Edelgard sighed and removed her foot from the rat.

"Whoa, that was scary. Felt my life flashing before my eyes. My life, my life—That's right, I got it now! My real name is Tesso! Lookin' forward to workin' with ya, babe!" Tesso transformed into a golden apple that immediately flew into Byleth's hands and disappeared after a single bite.

For some reason, the tart flavor was especially apparent with Tesso's apple.

"Okay, so now you all got a chance to sway a Shadow over to Byleth's side. Looks like there's a bit of a lull in Shadows popping up out of nowhere, so let's keep moving," the little girl said. She, Dimitri, and Claude led the continued way through the forest while Byleth and Edelgard headed up the rear.

"Does Tesso really make you uncomfortable?" Byleth asked. Edelgard wasn't looking her in the eye.

"Not that thing, specifically, but I'd rather not have to look at it if I could help it, especially with what it brings out in me."

"I don't get it, but if you don't like it, then I won't use him in front of you." Edelgard looked at Byleth again and nodded her head.

"Professor, I didn't get the chance to ask you earlier, but was what happened with that Pixie how you always do things? Is it easy enough for you to forgive someone, so long as they just say that they're sorry?"

"It depends on the person, but if I don't hate them and they really are sorry, then it should be enough." Edelgard kept looking at Byleth before smiling a bit.

"I see. That's good to hear." It was just a simple fact about herself that she was stating, but if Edelgard got something out of it, then good for her.

* * *

The group continued their journey through Alfheim and after Pallordo. Sure enough, more Shadows appeared again and again to try and take them down, all failing to do so, and while most of them were defeated with relative ease, some were added to Byleth's steadily growing roster of Personas. Four of them ended up being enemies they had previously faced in battle: the gelatinous blob known as Slime, the little girl with pointed ears known as Nadja, the armored knight known as Airgetlam, and the knife-wielding skeleton Jack Ripper; it was another one of the Jack Bros, and she found that quite humorous. Three new ones added to the roster were Mandrake, an odd-looking plant-like creature, Bicorn, a purple horse with two horns, and Cait Sith, a bipedal cat dressed like a fancy swordsman.

It was also through all of that that Byleth learned that she could only contain a maximum of ten Personas at once. A few seconds after Bicorn joined her, a searing pain surged through her head, like someone was concussing her with a pair of silver gauntlets over and over again. At the same time, a voice was telling her to discard a Persona; she didn't know what that meant, but the second she thought about getting rid of Tesso, the pain, along with Tesso, vanished from her mind and heart. She was far quicker about it with Cait Sith and spent little time on deciding to get rid of Airgetlam; Jack Ripper could also use dark magic, and it was cuter than Airgetlam, so it was a no-brainer. No other new Shadows were added after that, and their exploration went uninterrupted until they came to a large river blocking their path.

"That is—That is a lot of water," Edelgard said rather slowly.

"Very astute observation," Claude said. "Looks like it just keeps going and going on both sides. Guess we got no choice but to swim across."

"Okay," Byleth said. She wasted no time in taking off her breastplate, but when her blouse was barely halfway over her chest, the little girl flew over and pulled it right back down. "Personal space."

"I don't care!" the little girl said. "Don't be so quick to get into your skivvies in front of everyone!"

"If I'm slow about it, it'll just be wasting time."

"That's not the problem here! The problem is giving these kids a heart attack because they're unable to handle you in your near-nudity!"

"You can't kill people by being naked." Byleth turned to the others. "Would I kill you if I was naked?"

"Nope. No problems here," Claude said.

"I, um, I think I would find a way to manage, somehow, I think," Dimitri said; it looked as if his fever from earlier had returned.

Edelgard was the only one who didn't say anything because her head was submerged underneath the water.

"Is she thirsty?" Byleth asked.

"I—No, that's too easy, and you'll never learn this way," the little girl said; Byleth had no idea what she was supposed to be learning, but she would figure it out, eventually. Soon enough, Edelgard lifted her head out of the water, panting a little as she squeezed the water out of her hair.

"I was testing the strength of the river. That's all that I was doing," Edelgard said. "The current feels too strong for swimming, so I believe we should avoid swimming at all costs."

"Right. Yeah, that's all that was," Claude said, doing a good job of restating the obvious. "Are you sure about that, though? I mean, it doesn't look _too _bad, so—"

"It is definitely too much! Besides, we still don't know everything about how this world works, so we can't say for certain that swimming in this water would be okay, okay?"

"Okay," Byleth said. Edelgard let out a breath as Byleth pulled her blouse back down and put her breastplate back on.

"If swimming isn't an option anymore, how are we going to cross?" Dimitri asked, his fever looking like it had died down.

"Too bad I can't transform into a boat or anything like that. Or anything, really. An ability like that would certainly be useful," the little girl said. "Let me see just how far this river goes." The little girl flew up into the air, far above the metal trees. Byleth could see her twisting her head about to get a look around, and after a minute of that, she flew back down and had everyone follow them upstream, saying that there were two things she wanted them to look at.

The first thing that she directed them to was a large pillar of green light sticking out of the ground. It seemed to stretch all the way up to the sky, and its coloring was the same as the fire that appeared whenever they summoned their Personas. No one had any immediate guesses as to what it might be, so it was agreed that they wouldn't get too close to it until they finished examining the second thing the little girl found: a large, metal arch at the riverbank.

"Pretty weird place for something like this. Think it's how they decorate here?" Claude asked.

"I don't think so," the little girl said. "I saw the other side of the river when I was in the air before, and there's some sort of indent in the ground. My guess is there's supposed to be some sort of bridge here, but I'm not sure what happened to it. It'd be easy to say that it was destroyed, but there are no signs of destruction here."

"Look," Byleth stated. She pointed at the left side of the arch and drew everyone's attention to a small, rectangular opening. "It looks like it has depth to it, and it also doesn't look like someone made it with a cut."

"So a natural part of the architecture, then. Does it mean something?" Dimitri asked.

"Hide." At Byleth's word, everyone went behind a couple of trees as a pair of Shadows touched down by the arch. Oddly enough, while they looked mostly the same as the regular Shadows they had been facing, their white robes had gold trimmings around the edges, and their wings appeared to be sparkling.

"Still no sign of those intruders. We better find them soon, though, lest Lord Pallordo have our heads," one of the Shadows said.

"I don't even know what he's so scared for. As long as they don't have the keycard, there's no way they'll be able to cross the river and head to the center," the other Shadow said.

"Yeah. Stupid intruders, thinking they can do anything against us." The Shadows let out a laugh and flew off into the air. Once they were out of sight, Byleth and everyone removed themselves from their hiding spots.

"So we're stupid, are we? Bet they're the ones who'll be feeling _real _stupid once they learn they gave us everything we need to know," Claude said.

"I'm still a little confused, though," Dimitri said. "I can assume that this 'keycard' they spoke of is some sort of key, but what is it supposed to be?"

"Well, if it's a card, then it must be rectangular, so it probably goes into that slit on the arch," Edelgard said. "Sometimes, when a person builds a dungeon, they set up mechanisms in a way that require inserting objects like gemstones into something to trigger them, so perhaps this keycard will summon the bridge after we use it."

"Well, we won't be able to figure it out just by standing here. Let's find the Shadow that has the keycard thing and rob him blind!" the little girl said.

"What about that?" Byleth asked, directing everyone's attention back to the pillar of green light stretching out to the sky.

"Come to think of it, those Shadows didn't say anything about that pillar of light getting in our way, so that might mean it's harmless."

"Or it's so dangerous that they don't need to remind themselves of it," Edelgard said.

"Okay, that sounds like you're arguing with me just to argue with me. Knock it off." Edelgard said nothing in response. With that being settled, Byleth walked over to the pillar of light and stuck the tip of her sword into it. She pulled it out after a few seconds and saw that the sword was unharmed and unchanged, so naturally, the next logical step was to stick her head into the pillar.

Her face had only grazed the surface before the little girl yanked her away from it.

"Personal space. Also, you said it was fine," Byleth said.

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you should just stick your head in there out of the blue like that! Have at least a semblance of self-preservation!" the little girl said.

"I do, and it's fine. Watch." Without another word, Byleth stepped away from the little girl and stepped into the pillar of light, a flash of green light briefly entering her vision.

* * *

It wasn't long before the rest of Byleth's group had stepped through the pillar of light. Everyone started lambasting her for being so quick to step through the pillar of light, even though it was agreed that it was probably safe, but they all stopped talking when they saw what Byleth had first seen when she stuck her face through the pillar of light.

"We're back at the beginning of Alfheim," Dimitri said. Sure enough, everyone had been taking in the familiar scenery of the grassy field that graced their presence whenever they came to Alfheim. "How is this possible? Were we teleported, somehow?"

"I think we've got our answer right there," Claude said. He pointed behind everyone and drew their attention to a pillar of light identical to the one they stepped through, one that hadn't been there any of the previous times they had entered the area.

"I believe I know what's going on," Edelgard said. "This pillar of light has a similar function to a warp tile: step through one pillar, and you're spat out from another one; I'm assuming we didn't see this pillar before because it was only activated when we stepped through the other one."

"So if we step through this thing, we can instantly jump around from here to wherever else there's another one of these things? Nice! That'll sure save on travel time if we end up having to leave today."

"Let's keep that a rather big 'if'. I'd like to find Pallordo before the day is done, if possible," Dimitri said. Byleth and everyone else seemed to be in agreement, and they all headed for the pillar of light to start their search for the keycard.

"Hey, what are you looking at?" was something the little girl asked of Byleth. She asked her that because Byleth had suddenly stopped walking with the rest of the group. If the little girl was questioning what she was looking at, then that could only mean that Byleth was the only one seeing the blue door by the edge of the field. The door that was the same shade of blue as the Velvet Room.

Before Byleth knew it, the key Igor had given her appeared in her hands. Igor had said that she could use it to enter the Velvet Room at her leisure and that they would have more to talk about by the time she decided to do so.

There were, indeed, things she wanted to talk about, so without thinking too much about it, Byleth opened the door with her key and stepped through.

* * *

"Welcome back," was how Igor greeted Byleth when she sat back down in front of Adam and himself in the Velvet Room. "We have been watching your progress through the World Tree. I must congratulate you, both for gaining allies with similar abilities to yourself and for awakening to your abilities as a Wild Card."

"Thank you," Byleth said. "So me being a Wild Card is why I can use multiple Personas?"

"Indeed, it is," Adam said. "While most Persona users are only able to divide themselves between their true selves and a single mask, the Wild Card is unique in that it allows you to wield multiple masks in your struggle against adversity. This is why I compared it to the number zero; it is empty in that it lacks the individualized identity of a normal Persona user, but it is infinite in that it can hold a large number of other selves within itself."

_So I'm empty, then. Huh_, Byleth thought. The notion lingered in her mind for a bit longer than she thought it would.

"Since you've gotten a handle at obtaining Personas in the field, would you like to try your hand at another means of obtaining them?" Byleth nodded her head. "Very good. Allow us to introduce you to the power of fusion."

"Fusion is one of the services Adam and I will be providing you on your journey," Igor said. "With this power, you can take two of your weaker Personas and combine them into a new one that's stronger than the sum of its parts, even inheriting some of the abilities of its components."

"What if I want to keep using one?" Byleth asked.

"Worry not, miss, for that is where I come in," Adam said. Adam snapped his fingers, and in his hands appeared a large, leather-bound book. "All Personas you obtain are registered into this grimoire the second you obtain them. If you ever feel like regaining a Persona, I would be more than happy to summon them from their respective page. For a small fee, of course."

"You two are why Shadows drop money and other things." The words left Byleth's mouth the second the revelation hit her.

"Yes, that is, indeed, our doing," Igor said. "It seemed appropriate to give you extra incentive to fight the enemies before you. Not only that, but setting up that system allows for us to employ a sort of 'give and take' with fusion. It would definitely be within our power to provide the service for free, but it would be hard for us to imagine you understanding the value of it if you never had to work for it. You understand, yes?" Byleth nodded her head. "Good. Now, let's begin." Igor snapped his fingers, and in an instant, a series of green will-o'-wisps appeared in front of Byleth. Some of them had images of people and creatures Byleth assumed to be potential Personas, but others just had silhouettes for her to look at.

"You're wondering about the silhouettes, aren't you?" Adam asked. "While you technically possess the Personas necessary to create them, it would be unwise of us to allow you to do so. You've already discovered that using a Persona is draining on your physical and mental health," Byleth flashbacked to how much she strained herself when she tried to have eleven Personas, "and those Personas go right along with that. At your current level of strength, summoning them even once would completely drain you of power and leave you defenseless, and since my master and I wish to see you succeed, we would advise you not to try and fuse them until you have strengthened yourself further."

"Okay," was all Byleth said on the matter. Adam let out a little laugh, and Byleth went back to looking at the will-o'-wisps until she had found one she liked and pointed at it.

"Let us begin," Igor said. A chessboard appeared between Byleth and Igor, and into the chessboard flew a pair of green lights that had flown out of Byleth's chest. Out from the chessboard rose a full set of chess pieces, all of them in the shape of the components of her choice, Freydis and Nadja. The pieces moved around the board with the speed and precision that Byleth assumed seasoned chess players would move them with, shattering into dust whenever they collided with each other.

Soon enough, there were only two pieces left on the board, one of each Persona, and when they collided, instead of dust, they turned into a green light that floated above the chessboard and turned into a blue owl with long legs and a crown on its head.

"The name's Stolas," the owl said. "I abhor having to associate with the common folk, but seeing as I'm now you, I suppose I can make an exception, just this once." Stolas transformed into a familiar golden apple that Byleth wasted no time in taking a bite out of.

"Truly a remarkable fusion. How do you feel after this?" Igor asked.

"Don't know. Can I have Freydis back?" Byleth asked.

"Quick to the point, I see," Adam said. He flipped open the grimoire, touched a page inside, and gold coins flew out from behind Byleth and into the book, presumably coming from the pouch she was provided. Nothing else happened after that, but she could feel Freydis returning to her mind. "Would you like to keep fusing? Or is there something on your mind that you'd like to have cleared up before we proceed further?"

"What's a Fool, and why are the Nibelungs that?"

"Ah, I see. You're referring to your Confidant, is that it?" Byleth didn't know the context of the word, but it had appeared in her head earlier, so she nodded in response to him.

"Yes, that is the other power of the Wild Card you have awakened today," Igor said. "You are on a journey of great importance, but you cannot walk it alone. Involving yourself with others is an important foundation of your task, and you've done well to get it started. That said, I am not advising the formation of superficial relationships. It must not be of frivolity, but a ring of those who would, by morals or faith, lend you their strength. In other words, they are bonds with those who are in need of help and can provide you the same if asked for it. The expansion of said ring will, in return, help you mature, as well."

"Personas are the strength of one's heart. The stronger the bonds that surround you, the more power your Personas will gain. If you form more bonds with people and continually strengthen them, you will grow stronger and stronger still. It is, undoubtedly, in your benefit," Adam said. The words Igor and Adam were saying were odd, a lot of the speech being something she couldn't completely wrap her head around. Parts of it were confusing, but the gist of what Byleth got out of it was that Confidants were formed when she formed a bond with people and if she wanted to make herself stronger as a Wild Card, she would need to keep doing it.

"I think you should pick someone else for this," Byleth said.

"Is that so? Why should we do that?" Igor asked.

"I'm not good for the job. I won't get Confidants."

"Why do you think this? Because you have no experience with forming bonds? Because no relationship other than the one with your father has ever been a lasting one? Because you, in general, are not good at understanding others?" It was hard to nod at everything, so Byleth hoped a single nod would encompass everything. "If those are your problems, then I have to tell you that you are an even more appropriate guest than I first believed you to be."

"I don't understand," Byleth said.

"As we said, strengthening your bonds with your Confidants will help you mature as an individual, as well," Adam said. "As you bond with them and help them grow, you will grow, as well. The perfect kind of person for this role is someone who needs first-hand experience with bonding with others, so if you believe that you aren't good at that, then all the more reason for you to be our guest."

"Me not being good with people is a good thing?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes. I suppose you never thought you'd hear someone tell you that, right?" It was true, she never imagined hearing that. Not after everything she had lived through with her father's company, not after she started seeing the little girl in her dreams, and not even after the adventure with Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude had started. It was an odd thing to consider, but she still had no reason to believe that they would lie to her, so for now, she would believe them when they said that she was still fit to be a Wild Card.

Once that was done, at Igor's behest, they kept going.

* * *

After crafting several more fusions, Byleth, having exhausted all of her options, bid Igor and Adam farewell and left the Velvet Room. For some reason, when her senses returned to her, she was standing in front of the door to the Velvet Room in the same way she did when she first entered, and when she apologized for taking so long, the little girl gave her an odd look and said that she was only staring out into space for ten seconds. The Velvet Room seemed to have its own odd quirks to it, but Byleth would have to think about that later. For now, she was joining the rest of the group in entering the pillar of light and returning to the arch.

"Okay, now to find the keycard," Edelgard said. "Those Shadows we eavesdropped on looked slightly different from the others, so they seem like a good place to start. Where do you think we should start looking for them."

"They were looking for us, so let's bring them to us," Byleth said. She drew her Crest in the air, slammed her hand against it, and summoned one of her new Personas: an anthropomorphic, female frog wearing a dress and cross-like accessories on her arms. Byleth commanded her Persona to fire lightning into the air, hoping that it would draw the two Shadows to their location.

"Byleth? What _is _that?" Dimitri asked.

"Heqet," Byleth said as Heqet kept shooting lightning into the air.

"Right, right. Where did you get that Persona?"

"Fusion of Bicorn and Mandrake," Byleth said as Heqet kept shooting lightning into the air.

"So, what? You can just mash two Personas into a new one, now? How'd you learn to do that?" the little girl asked. Byleth didn't say anything as Heqet kept shooting lightning into the air. "Yeah, that's about what I expected, I guess." Byleth didn't know how to respond to that, and before Heqet could fire another bolt of lightning, one of the Shadows with the gold trimmings on its robe touched down in front of them.

"There you are! I finally found you intruders!" the Shadow said.

"We wanted you to do that," Byleth said.

"A likely story! Now, you die!" The Shadow exploded into dark goo and turned into a snowman wearing snow boots and a pointed blue hat. "For Lord Pallordo, I won't let you get past me-hee-ho!" It was hard to take him seriously when he had a perpetual grin on his face and now spoke with a child-like voice. None of that stopped Byleth from having Heqet shoot it with lightning and knocking him back.

"Let's go!" Edelgard said as she, Dimitri, and Claude summoned their own Personas. Dimitri's Gunnar shot water at the snowman, but it was easily brushed off and the snowman fired a blast of ice that knocked the two of them back, Claude and Orvar-Oddr suffering the same fate when he tried to shoot it with ethereal arrows. Edelgard's Brynhildr managed to get in close to try and slash at the snowman, only for the snowman to run away in tears that froze the second they fell off of his face.

"We should melt it," Byleth said, Edelgard nodding in response. Byleth drew her Crest and switched Heqet out for Cait Sith, and once it appeared, Cait Sith, Brynhildr, and Byleth, herself, shot fireballs at the snowman. The combined power of their attacks melted his entire lower half, and it fell to the ground with a "Hee-Ho!"

"Nice job, you two. I guess it goes to show that you've got some real _fire_power," Claude said.

"Yes, because we defeated the enemy," Byleth said. For some reason, Claude let out a sigh. Byleth ignored that before turning back to the snowman. "Do you have the keycard? If you don't have it, tell us who does."

"Hee-Ho! Hee-Ho! Hee-Ho! Hee-Ho! Hee-Ho!" Byleth wasn't sure what to make of that, if anything even could be made of that.

"I'm not sure why, but I don't think we'll be able to talk to this one. It looks like the Sphere of Influence has a stronger effect on some Shadows than it does on others," the little girl said.

"No choice but to kill it, then," Byleth said. A shame to have to do in someone who looked so cute, but it had to be done.

Before it could be done, however, the other Shadow with gold trimmings on its robe flew in and landed next to the snowman, transforming into a snowman, himself.

"That's far enough-ho!" the second snowman said. "I won't let you hurt my buddy-hee anymore-ho! You might be too much for one of us-ho—"

"But not two of us, hee-ho!" the first snowman said. The second snowman melted down into a puddle that was mixed into the first snowman, and the mixture was bathed in a dark aura that exploded into green light. When the light faded, the two snowmen were replaced with a much larger version with a crown, a scepter, a cape, and a fancy haircut whose lower half was made entirely out of dozens and dozens of the original snowmen.

"He got bigger," Byleth said.

"Yes, we can see that," Dimitri said.

"Bow to me! Hee-know your places!" the giant snowman said before firing ice at all of their Personas; a surge of pain rushed through Byleth, and she was sure the others felt the same. The giant snowman then waved its scepter in front of itself, causing a red aura to form around its body. The second Byleth regained herself, she launched a fireball at the giant snowman, but while it looked like he took damage, it was hardly to the same effect as with the smaller snowman. "Not gonna cut it this time, hee-ho!"

"That red aura must make it resistant to fire!" the little girl said. "There's no way it can keep that up forever, though, so use other attacks until it wears off!"

"That goes without saying!" Edelgard said, firing her Bang Bang Boomer at the giant snowman. The bullet knocked out one of the lumps of coal it used for an eyeball, and in a fit of rage, it fired more ice at everyone and blew them all back. It readied itself for a third blast of ice, but now Byleth was ready for it.

"Apsaras!" Byleth said, drawing her Crest and switching out Cait Sith for a new Persona. Apsaras, a blue-skinned woman in a white outfit with a translucent sash around her arms, was resistant to ice attacks, so Byleth was able to use her to absorb some of the attack and use her own fire magic to get rid of the rest. Apsaras fired a blast of wind at the giant snowman, and as it was knocked back, Brynhildr and Gunnar slashed at its arms and Orvar-Oddr shot its torso with arrows.

"Knock it off, hee-ho!" the giant snowman said, batting Brynhildr and Gunnar away with its scepter. Claude and Orvar-Oddr fired arrows, but they were deflected by a singular blast of ice larger than the ones previously fired that managed to knock the two of them into a tree. The giant snowman then slid over to Byleth and swung its scepter down at her hard and fast, too fast for her to try and dodge, so she braced herself for the impact. The impact came, but it didn't hurt as much as she thought it would.

"Are you all right, Professor?" When Byleth picked herself back up, she saw that her body was covered in a faint glow, and she also saw that Edelgard and Brynhildr were pointing their respective weapons in her direction. It appeared that Brynhildr had the power to increase their durability. Good to know.

"I didn't die," Byleth said. Edelgard appeared satisfied with that.

"That's cheating, hee-ho!" The giant snowman swung at Byleth once more, but now she was ready for it.

"Freydis," Byleth said, summoning Freydis to the field. Freydis parried the scepter with her sword, and while she couldn't completely knock it away, she was strong enough to maintain a stalemate. That was manageable. Byleth jumped up and launched a fireball into the giant snowman's face; it wasn't especially effective because of the aura, but it was enough to startle him, which allowed Freydis to break through the stalemate and, with help from the rest of the Personas, hack at the hand holding the scepter until it came clean off.

As the giant snowman cried, the red aura around the giant snowman vanished.

"Sanzo." Byleth swapped Freydis out for another new Persona, a long-haired woman holding a pewter staff dressed in an ornate hat with a white robe exposing her undergarments. Sanzo waved her staff in the air and a gray aura engulfed the giant snowman just as he tried to summon the red aura again. Just as Byleth had hoped, that power of Sanzo's had managed to seal his powers.

"Cheater! Cheater cheater, pumpkin eater!"

"I haven't had pumpkin in a while, actually." Sanzo's staff glowed with ethereal light before stretching out and shooting the giant snowman through the chest. Byleth then swapped Sanzo out for Cait Sith and had it shoot him with a fireball, alongside Brynhildr and herself. The pile of tiny snowmen melted and he fell on his back, and as he lay there, everyone charged at him with their weapons and hit him again and again until he was completely destroyed, offering one final "Hee-Ho!" before vanishing.

"Hoy, that was a tough one. I think we could all use a little pick-me-up," Claude said. Orvar-Oddr drew an arrow of light, but it was pink and was fired directly into Byleth. The healing spell quickly took effect and Byleth felt her injuries fade away. Claude repeated the process for Dimitri and himself, but Edelgard excused herself from it.

"I feel fine, so you should conserve your strength," Edelgard said.

"Really? Could have sworn I saw you get a little banged up, but okay." Claude shrugged his shoulders and dismissed Orvar-Oddr.

"Look," Byleth said, stepping over to the spot where the giant snowman once was. Sticking out of the grass was a small, rectangular object with a green "A" on one side. "It's the keycard."

"It does look like a card, so that might be true. Let's try it out," Dimitri said. Byleth handed him the keycard and he walked over to the arch. Dimitri inserted it into the slit, and his expression quickly turned sour.

"What's wrong? Doesn't it fit?" the little girl asked.

"No, it does, but it's not a complete fit. It feels like I can just slide it back out, but it should be fully locked in, shouldn't it?"

"Maybe you turn it? It is a _key_card, after all," Edelgard said.

"I tried that, but nothing happened. This must be a fake one, and the Shadow with the real keycard is still out there." Dimitri pulled the card out and stepped back to everyone. "Let's keep looking for—" Before Dimitri could finish, a strange series of noises started sounding out from the arch, and a second later, a silver bridge shot out of the arch, went over the river, and connected to the indent on the other side. "Oh. I guess it did work, then."

"A key you don't have to turn to unlock something. What a time to be alive," Claude said.

"Let's go," Byleth said, making herself the first one to step onto the bridge, with the rest of the group closely following behind. They were able to get that far by working together, and Byleth wanted to keep going with that.

If learning how to be with them would help make her strong, then she would do what she could to see it as far as it could go.

* * *

**Confidants:**

**Fool: The Nibelungs 1/10**

* * *

**The Nibelungs**

**Name: Byleth Eisner**

**Persona: Freydis**

**Specialty: Bless and Physical**

**Weak to: Curse**

**Resists: Bless**

**Name: Edelgard von Hresvelg**

**Persona: Brynhildr**

**Specialty: Fire and Defense buffs**

**Weak to: Water**

**Resists: Fire**

**Name: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd**

**Persona: Gunnar**

**Specialty: Water and Physical**

**Weak to: Force**

**Resists: Water**

**Name: Claude von Riegan**

**Persona: Orvar-Oddr**

**Specialty: Force and Healing**

**Weak to: Fire**

**Resists: Force**

* * *

**Persona Compendium**

**Name: Freydis**

**Arcana: Fool**

**Bio: The daughter of Norse explorer Erik the Red. In **_**The Saga of Erik the Red**_**, Freydis is depicted as a viking warrior who joined her half-brother on an expedition to Vinland when they were attacked by the Skraeling. While the rest of the crew panicked, Freydis admonished them for cowardice and fought off the enemy, all while heavily pregnant.**

**Name: Slime**

**Arcana: Fool**

**Bio: A primitive monster with a viscous body. There are various theories as to its origins, but it is still under debate. Said to compulsively collect shiny objects.**

**Name: Jack Ripper**

**Arcana: Jester**

**Bio: A serial killer who terrorized London in the 19th century. He killed prostitute after prostitute in the slums of London, then mutilated their bodies. The media was quick to cover the murders, and the case was the talk of the town. Scotland Yard came up with a few suspects after a thorough investigation, but the case went unsolved.**

**Name: Pyro Jack**

**Arcana: Magician**

**Bio: A drunkard who tricked the Devil out of taking him to Hell. When refused entry into Heaven, he was forced to wander the earth with only an ember as a light.**

**Name: Apsaras**

**Arcana: Priestess**

**Bio: Hindu water spirits, they are beautiful young women who dance for the gods. They also guide heroes fallen in battle to paradise.**

**Name: Airgetlam**

**Arcana: Emperor**

**Bio: The first king of the Tuatha Dé Danann. He is cognate with the Gaulish and British god Nodens. His Welsh equivalent is Nudd or Lludd Llaw Eraint. **

**Name: Stolas**

**Arcana: Secrets**

**Bio: The 36th demonic spirit of the Ars Goetia and** **a Great Prince of Hell. He commands twenty-six legions of demons and teaches astronomy and the knowledge of poisonous plants, herbs and precious stones and their uses during prophecies.**

**Name: Sanzo**

**Arcana: Councillor**

**Bio: A Chinese Buddhist monk who traveled to India to bring back Buddhist scriptures to China during the Tang Dynasty. His story was adapted into the famous **_**Journey of the West**_**. While the original monk was male, it's not uncommon for adaptations to make him effeminate or female.**

**Name: Pixie**

**Arcana: Lovers**

**Bio: Friendly fairies of the forest that tend to hide from humans. They like to play tricks on the Laz people. It is said that they are the souls of dead, unbaptized children.**

**Name: Heqet**

**Arcana: Lovers**

**Bio: A frog-goddess in Egyptian mythology associated with fertility and the later stages of childbirth. She breathed life into the new body of Horus during his birth. She is also considered to be an aspect of Isis. **

**Name: Nemhain**

**Arcana: Adjustment**

**Bio: Along with Badb Catha and Macha, Nemhain was part of a trio of goddesses that represented various aspects of the goddess Morrigan. She represented the state of frenzy and panic and often created such feelings in armies, causing those of such states to attack both allies and enemies in rage. **

**Name: Bicorn**

**Arcana: Hermit**

**Bio: An evil creature with two curving horns. It represents impurity, unlike the Unicorn. Said to be derived from Re'em in the Bible. Another legend says that it feeds off of disloyal husbands.**

**Name: Mandrake**

**Arcana: Fortune**

**Bio: A magical plant whose roots look like a human. They are valued for their healing properties in potions, but the screams they let out when pulled from the ground will kill anyone who hears them.**

**Name: Tesso**

**Arcana: Devil**

**Bio: Tesso was originally a Buddhist monk named Raigo, however, due to being slighted in life he enacted a hunger strike which led to his death. Afterward, the anger he felt transformed his spirit into the demon. **

**Name: Cait Sith**

**Arcana: Passion**

**Bio: A fae beast from the Scottish highlands. Their kingdoms are in tree hollows or abandoned houses. Dog-sized, with vivid green eyes. Some live with humans, as they understand our speech.**

**Name: Nadja**

**Arcana: Faith**

**Bio: A mysterious fairy girl with green eyes and brown skin, wearing a short, white dress and a bone necklace. Her name comes from the young woman who appears in the eponymous novel by Andre Breton.**

* * *

**Byleth's Roster:**

**Freydis**

**Cait Sith**

**Apsaras**

**Sanzo**

**Heqet**

**Jack Ripper**

**Stolas**

**?**

**?**

**?**


End file.
